Grow up!
by Panabelle
Summary: It was a look that Pan had only ever seen once before. On Bulma's face. Right before she'd broken three of Vegeta's ribs by hurling a fullsized refrigerator at him.
1. prologue::laptop

Disclaimer: *looks around all sneaky-like; grabs the cheez-its and makes a break for it laughing maniacally* Mine! Mine! All mine! Bwa ha ha ha ha! 

A/N: Don't tell me you all thought I was going to fade back into the shadows from wence I came to torment you 2 years ago. HA! 

******************************************************  
_**GROW UP!!!**_  
prologue::laptop

  
  


A giant, monstrous yawn forced itself out through cherry blossom lips, clawing itself free until the body was twisted into a laborious stretch from foot to toe. Once free, it glanced quickly about the room before attacking the pale flesh of a brunette farther down the line, desperate to free its brethren. 

Feeling shoulder joints and elbows lock into place and pop back out with a satisfactory sound that echoed through her bones and part of the room, she folded her arms across the desk and lowered the front feet of her chair to the floor, looking sleepily around the room. But there was nothing of any entertainment value to be had; the clowns were crying with boredom, the doodlers were working on five-star works of art, the note-passers were writing novels, and even the studious were making up for their all-nighters on the notes they had grown tired of taking. 

A quick glance to the windows made it clear that there would be no daydreams of sunbathing today; not even of splashing through puddles. The fog swirled against the glass, so thick that even the heavy downpour failed to wet the panes. With a sigh, she lowered her eyes to her notebook, silently admiring the sledgehammer a stickman was wielding against a stick-mecha. 

"Ah…what would I give for a laptop," came the content, satisfied, and rhetorical question beside her. Compelled if only by the need to look at something other than the numbers scrawled on the whiteboard several rows below, she turned, lifting blue eyes to the bluer ones that sparkled with malicious intent. "Oh, wait, I don't _need_ to give _any_thing, _do_ I?" the girl continued, lifting the lid on the precious artifact, the soft glow of technological perfection splashing out onto both of them. 

"Fuck you, Pan," she spat, whipping her head around to look down at the board, filled with a renewed sense of duty towards mathematics. 

Beside her, her best friend laughed quietly, tugging absently on one of the pigtails that fell across either shoulder beneath her bandana, winking one incredibly blue eye as she opened her games folder. 

"Right now?" 

Bra laughed quietly and smacked blue bangs from her face, quietly hopping her seat closer to her friend's, leaning over to look at the blissfully amusing flat-screened wonder that gloated in its silver casing like a bird who had just preened his feathers. 

"Is this the laptop your parents got you for your birthday last week?" 

Pan rolled her eyes and angled the screen farther back to keep the blue glare from their eyes and to give the professor, busy droning on about functions, the impression that they were taking notes. "No Bra, this is the one they gave me for my birthday two years ago. _Yes_ this is my birthday present, how many of these do you think I have?" 

Bra shook her head and set the side of her face on her friend's shoulder, sighing contentedly at the familiar and unchanging warmth beneath the white shirt. She watched idly as Pan opened a game of Tetris, the red, orange, blue, and purple shapes blurring into smudges of color. 

"Bra?" Pan whispered, pausing the game to look down at her friend's face on her shoulder. Giving a sharp, half-shrug, she was mortified to find the half-saiyan princess asleep. With a shrug of her eyebrow, she turned back to the game, completely unaware that their teacher had bored himself awake and was now mounting the stairs of the forum seating, eyes angrily trained on her. Rustles of whispers drew her out of her Tetris-trance as he reached the end of her row and she freaked, slamming the laptop shut and staring up at the teacher with eyes the size of baseballs. 

"Miss Son," he started, receiving a stammered "Yes Sir?" before he had even finished that much. Glaring down at her, he started again. "Miss Son, would you like to explain to me what is going on?" 

Pan straightened nervously, drawing in a deep breath that slid the sleeping Bra from her shoulder and startled her awake. Her mouth opened to breath and to answer, but the bell cut through her panic, slicing through the Friday afternoon doldrums left over from the lesson, brining everyone into awareness. Pan turned her gasp into a smile and thanked Dende. 

"Yes, Sir, I would _love_ to explain. Un_fortunate_ly, class is over and I have to catch my ride, so I'm afraid the explanation will have to wait until Monday." She stood quickly and bowed, turning to shove her laptop and school supplies into her bag and grab Bra before sprinting from the room.

* * *

"Alright, explain." 

Bra shrugged, leaning back against the lockers as she shoved a foot into a boot, admiring the contrast between dull nylon and glossy leather, all the while cursing the trillions of eyelets as she shoved the ends of the nylon laces through them. She seemed almost oblivious to the demanding bite in her friend's voice. 

"Bra…" Pan shifted and braced one hand against the wall of lockers, tugging off an indoor shoe with the other. 

"It's nothing, Pan. So I fell asleep in math. Big deal, I seem to remember having to hide you under the desk one day and telling Mr. Wantanabe that you'd had to make an emergency bathroom run." 

Pan rolled her eyes as she traded the white loafer for a hiking boot, hopping about in the hallway as she tried to put her foot inside and keep her blue skirt from flaring up at the same time. 

"Bra, I'm serious. I know I'm prone to act like a complete idiot sometimes, but I think I just created a new breed of stupid today when I tried to hide my gaming addiction and your nap from the guy. I'll be surprised if I'm not called into the principal's office Monday morning for my impertinence." 

"Wouldn't be the first time," Bra replied quietly. Pan rammed her foot into the locker right next to her, making her jump, and innocently tightening the laces of her boot before she started the process again with the other foot. 

"I'm just tired, Pan," Bra admitted begrudgingly, setting her foot on the ground and stomping a little, eyeing the laces on both boots to make sure she hadn't missed a hole. "I haven't been sleeping all that well." 

She busied herself with tugging at the pleats in her skirt as her friend hurried with the other boot, pulling out the wrinkles that had formed across her lap during a day of sitting down. Out of the corner of her eye she watched Pan lift her book bag from the floor and close her locker. Skirt situated, Bra smoothed her hands down the front of her blazer, picking off lint balls, preening herself with the diligence she showed between every class and before every appearance into the world beyond the school grounds. 

"By the bruises on your eyelids, I'm going to say you're lying through your pretty white teeth, Bra," Pan said gently, catching her friend's eyes. "Either you haven't been sleeping well for a _long_ ass time, or something's going on with you." Pulling her blazer out of her bag and draping it over her head, she leaned close to her friend as they walked out of the building into the rain. "You know, if your parents are fighting so badly, you're always welcome to crash at my place. You know we've always thought of you as my sister." 

Bra smiled dryly as she clamped her book bag over her head, the two of them waiting for a break in the human flow of traffic to make their break for the train. "It's not _Dad_ Mom's fighting with. It's my brother." 

Pan looked at her for a moment before the sea of humanity parted, leaving them a slender gap of running room. Pushing the thought to the back of her mind for future reference, she followed her blue hair companion into the wet.

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A/N: From the looks of things, this is going to turn into another one of my epic-ish fanfics. This idea has been with me for about a year and a half, but I haven't had a chance to pursue it *looks at the last monster that consumed her*, obviously enough...which means that not only do I know where this one's _going_ for once, I also have a lot of ideas to put into it. I should also warn you that chapters are going to be infrequent at best, but there won't be any of those short little f*ckers that I'm known for (read: this does not apply to cliffhangers *halo*). Writing happy and not dramatic is a challenge for me (thus I am writing this to challenge myself), so _please_ critique, comment, and flame as much as you want. Believe me, I'm going to need the feedback. _Any_ways, enjoy. I'll try and get the first chapter up before Valentine's. 

-Panabelle ;P  
www.angelfire.com/dbz/storytellers :: Shrine of the Saiyan Squirt: harassing Trunks for 2 years


	2. chapter 1::sanctuary

Disclaimer: Whoa...brain fart. 

A/N: Yeesh, guys, make it sound like I told you all I was never going to write again...ok, maybe I was a little morose with my last few a/n's. But I told you that you weren't rid of me! *sniff* Fine, I'll go crawl back under my rock for a few months if that's what you want. :( 

**************************************************************  
**_GROW UP!!!_**  
chapter 1::sanctuary

  
  


The rain had died down to a friendly drizzle, the kind of rain that makes you want to bust out the yellow rain-slicker and the red plastic boots and go splash through the puddles. But the wind was angry that there were no umbrellas to torment, and was throwing a fit about the house, flinging itself against windows and doors in a cold fury that made the house grumble. No, better to be inside where it was safe. 

Even better to be curled up in a warm quilt on a soft bed, with loud music drowning out the rain and the wind. It would have been nice to have someone to be curled up with, but as the saying goes, beggers will be choosers if the begging's not to their liking, and besides, all she wanted was sleep. The presense of a companion would have been wasted on her anyways. 

"Sis?" 

One aquamarine eye opened slowly, a hand raising to lift the quilt so that the eye had something to look at. Cold air hit her full in the face, and the eye narrowed at the intruder. 

"Whatever you want, I don't care." 

Her brother laughed and sat down on the edge of her bed, leaning his elbows back against her thighs. 

"What makes you think I want something, Bra?" 

"What makes you think I'm going to believe that you don't?" 

He smirked and pulled away the old quilt from her face, giving her a mock pout and puppy eyes that were ruined when she shrieked and made a dive for the blanket, the two of them turning it into a tussle until they'd somehow managed to both wind up under the old quilt, lying under the well-loved and nearly threadbare fabric like they used to when they were younger, days of long past when they'd built forts in the living room out of chairs and blankets. 

"Can't I just want to spend time with my loving little sister?" 

Bra quirked an eyebrow and jabbed him in the chest as he looked at her beseechingly, their faces colored pink and violet by the light screening through the quilt above them. "You just want to hide from Mom." 

He sighed and turned his face into her pillow, tugging absently at his lilac hair and probably not-so-absently at the blanket. She glowered at him as she fought to retain her command over half the quilt. 

"Can you blame me? She's going kamikaze down there! She's so freaking anxious to finish that damn thing that if I stop to breathe, she cracks out the whip!" 

As much as she wanted to remain oblivious to her brother's plight, the pathetic whine in his muffled voice brought a smile to her face. 

"That explains the screams of 'I haven't slept in 3 days' and the 3 hour long 'ode to coffee' that I kept me awake last night." 

Trunks peered back up at her sheepishly. "We really don't mean to yell...but you know Mom when she sets her mind to something. Plus, she's frustrated because there's a glitch in the mechanics and we can't find it. I think it might have something to do with the initial power connections made in the blueprints, but I don't know how to tell her that we'll have to go back so far to find out what's wrong." 

"You know, you _could_ just _build_ yourself a backbone..." 

His gaze grew flat. "Ha ha. I love you too, Bra." 

"I mean it," she continued, shifting a little to lay on her side facing him, tucking up her legs a little to keep her feet within the warm confines of their fort. "You're 32, Brother, and the president of the family business. And yet you're still living at home and you still can't whip out a few pages of plans and say 'Look, Mom, let's try _this_ before my sister goes offhinge from lack of sleep and kills me'." 

He blanched, grumbling under his breath. 

"So what is this thing you and Mom are building, anyways?" 

He shrugged. "A new hoverbike, I guess would be the best way to describe it. Only it's not. I dunno...you'll see when you finally lose it and storm down there in the middle of the night to go apeshit on her." 

"Lemme guess...you've escaped because Dad's finally lost it?" 

Trunks grinned. "Hardly...I made a break for it the first second she wasn't looking and ran into Father. He heard the warcry and promised to save me." 

Bra laughed quietly and closed her eyes, shaking her head as she felt Sleep caress the back of her mind. 

"So how's my little sister these days, other than exhausted? It's not like you to spend a Friday night at home by yourself," he mused quietly. 

"It's not like I have anyone to do anything with," she yawned in reply, instinctively seeking the warmth and familiar comfort that was her brother. He laughed quietly in response and draped an arm over her side as she turned him into her pillow. 

"What about Pan?" Bra grumbled quietly, receiving a tight cough from her brother. "Or have you pushed her off the Earth?" 

Bra sighed as Sleep kissed her forehead and skimpered off to watch their conversation from the otherside of the room. 

"No, although she might as well have just thrown herself off. Between school, training, her job, and her boyfriend, she really don't have that much time left to spend with me." Hearing the whine in her voice that made her sound like her brother, she squirmed a little and back-pedaled. "I mean, well, she's been trying really hard to spend time with me, but I just feel like a third wheel, you know? I can't stand it." 

"Hard being the single one, isn't it?" he mumbled gently. 

She nodded. "Now I understand why you don't hang out with Goten anymore." 

They fell into quiet, both content to just lie there and feed off the other's body heat until one or both was asleep. 

"Tatsuki, right?" Trunks mumbled, petting his sister's blue hair. 

"Hmm?" she replied, half-asleep. "Pan's boyfriend? What about him?" 

He shifted, pulling back to look at her face. "We like Tatsuki?" 

"We liked his brother more..." 

Trunks chuckled quietly and leaned the rest of the way onto his back, smiling as he felt the tension drain from her shoulders and her breathing pattern steady. 

"Do me a favor and don't kill me when Mom comes in demanding to know where I am..." 

"I'll final flash her if she even thinks of waking me up," Bra yawned sleepily in response, curling up on his chest, the lulling sensation of someone playing with her hair inviting Sleep back into the conversation. She smiled as Sleep pushed blue bangs from her face and kissed her eyelids, inviting her into dreamland. A few minutes later, he joined her there.

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A/N: Extra special thanks to ChiChi who's beta'ing this for me...happy isn't easy for Belle. *jumps up and down all excited like* She's on ff now! [http://www.fanfiction.net/profile.php?userid=17351] Go there! Now! Read her stuff and worship her! I command you! *runs away to work on the next chapter* 

-Panabelle ;P  
www.angelfire.com/dbz/storytellers : Shrine of the Saiyan Squirt::what, were you waiting for an invitation? 


	3. chapter 2::plague

Disclaimer: *grumbles* rassa frassa stupid valentine's day frassa rassa rassa... 

A/N: Well, I have the chapter ready, but it gets to sit on my harddrive while I wait for ff to finish with the plans they announced. Growlage. Anyways, just want to note that Tatsuki and his little brother are both of my creation. 

Special thanks to Pia for beta'ing this chapter for me; it really needed the overhaul. 

****************************************  
**_GROW UP!!!_**  
chapter 2::plague

  
  


Her eye was twitching again. 

"Hey! Son! Get up here and man the counter, would you? I need to take my ten!" 

And if Kei wasn't careful, _he'd_ be twitching. 

But Pan swallowed her pride and pushed her way past fryers and flippers, careful not to accidentally shove one of her coworkers onto the stoves or into the boiling oil. _How degrading is this?_ she grumbled to herself as she passed Kei and took his place behind the register. _It's a deadend job in America, but apparently, since it's American, that makes it automatically ok to spread the plague to Japan. Damn Americans, we give them animation and stereos, and what do they give us? They give us fucking...._ Her innervoice broke off into inutterable grumbles and gutteral cursing as she plastered a fake smile on her face and reached for her cheeriest voice. 

"Welcome to McDonald's. How can I help you?"

* * *

"Thanks for coming in tonight, Son. I know it's your night off and all, but..." 

Pan shrugged as she clocked out, pulling her jacket and her bag out of the lockers that didn't lock and kept valuables as safe as her grandfather did the world. She paused just long enough to admire the irony of that statement; her grandfather on her father's side kept things as safe as the lockers on campus--the ones that practically equated to small, immobile, steel-inforced tanks. Her grandfather on her mother's side though...as much as she loved him, her grandfather Satan was as oversensationalized and commercial driven as was the plague that America had sent them. It was probably was probably more than coincidence. 

Not trusting herself to say anything, she pushed out into the lobby where the dinnertime rush had slowed to an unsteady trickle of couples wanting milkshakes or french fries, just so that they could sit in the booths and be mushy together. She curled her nose at the thought of eating anything that ever came off the lines. Processed "cow" could be considered an acquired taste, but even the fry fumes corroding her brains cells wasn't enough to convince her. 

Pan ground her teeth, forcing a sneeze. As if working there wasn't enough, now she had to smell like the damned place. 

If she ate before she reported for her shift on Sunday, it'd be a miracle. 

She shivered at the thought; rice. She would live off rice for the rest of her life. 

America couldn't ruin the Godsend that was rice, no matter how hard it tried. Dende wouldn't let them. And if he would, she'd have to "talk" him out of it. 

Placing gloved hands against frosted glass painted with happy snowmen, she pushed open the door, the icy wind that rushed in raising every hair on her body to stand at full attention. Forcing the shock from her face, she fought past the instinct to go hundle over the ovens and burners in the back, and trudged forward. If she wasn't careful, her blood would freeze in her veins. 

_Note to self: get a job I can stand._

She glared down at the grease on her boots that the frostbitten snow couldn't slowsh away. It was eleven o'clock on a Friday night. Her uncle would be making kissy-kissy faces with his fiance in the living room by now, and her parents would have given up on making him leave and retreated into their own room to watch a movie or to read a book together. 

She debated catching a bus to the edge of the city, maybe take the subway, but the reality of the situation was that she couldn't afford it. Actually, in all truth, the reality of the situation was that she was scared witless at the thought of riding the bus this late at night: she was still skirting heaps of laundry with the fear of seeing it move. It'd been 2 months. 

So she walked. 

And about jumped out of her skin when her cell phone sprang to life in her pocket, singing some techno song that Bra had programed into it and vibrating from the volume level said Briefs had left it at. 

"H-hello?" she gasped after fumbling with thick gloves and frozen buttons, feeling the phone glue itself to her ear as she tugged at her earmuffs. 

"_Weren't you supposed to meet me at the park three hours ago?_" 

Pan swore colorfully, slapping her forehead. 

"_Get ringed into working again?_" 

"Yeah," she mumbled sheepishly. "And I meant to call you, I swear, Tats, but...um...well, your home line was busy and I didn't have time to dig through my backpack to find your cell..." 

"_It's ok, Panny_," he laughed quietly. She could imagine him, sitting in his apartment in front of The Beast, chatting with friends or playing CounterStrike, his feet propped up on the desk in front of him, keyboard on his lap... His nice, warm apartment with the heater cranked up to 70 and a pot of hot chocolate on the stove... 

She blinked and caught herself before walking off the curb into late night traffic. No use daydreaming about fire when the only fires it would lead to would be the ones in Hell. No doubt, Hell would be a giant McDonald's. 

"What was that, Tats?" 

"_You ok, Pan?_" 

She blushed inspite of herself as she waited for the light, suddenly struck with the wive's tale that "if you're not careful, your face will freeze like that." Idly, she wondered if this was one of those situations. 

"Yeah. What'd you say?" 

"_I asked where you were. You could at least let me drive you home since you stood me up._" 

She sighed and rubbed her forehead. "Tatsuki, I said I was..." 

"_I'm kidding Pan_," he laughed. "_Where are you? I'm sure you're freezing out there in that biting wind and that ice cold rain..._" 

"You're doing this just to make me colder, aren't you," she intoned flatly, glaring at the air in front of her; what few other pedestrians there were didn't pay her any heed. She took his quiet chuckle as a "yes". "Well guess what, Tats, you lose. If I were any colder, I'd be a figure carved out of ice." 

"_Maybe then you'd realize how beautiful you are._" 

She smiled dumbly inspite of herself, pushing her hair from her face with her gloved hand, wondering for the millionth time what she did to make a guy like Tatsuki like her. 

"_So, you gonna tell me where you are, or are you going leave me sitting in my icebox-on-wheels all night while you remember how to breathe?_" 

Pan blushed furiously and coughed, looking up and stammering out the street name and the store she was standing in front of, ducking her head as if those around her could hear him, hiding her blush behind her hair as he whispered "_I love you, be there quick as I can_," and hung up. 

Peeling the cellphone away from her ear and sliding it back into her pocket, she looked up into the rain, sheilding her eyes. Couples moved by her slowly, the mushy lovers from the MickyD's lobby. Arm-in-arm, they mumbled sweet nothings to each other as they passed, oblivious to everything but the heat and presence of the other. Pan's blush faded quickly and she moved away from them, wanting nothing to do with their displays of affection. 

Stomping her feet to stay warm, she stuck her hands under her armpits and looked up and down the street. She was worried about Bra, about the grey eyelids that makeup couldn't conceal. Or rather, she was more worried about _herself_; the fact that she hadn't noticed anything was wrong sooner was really rather disturbing. For the first time that Pan could remember, she had _no clue_ what was going on with her best friend. 

She hadn't even been this out of touch during the blackstar dragonball hunt 3 years ago. 

Speaking of, she hadn't seen Trunks in forever. Every get-together that Bulma had organized had been interrupted by McDonald's or a surprize exam. Tatsuki's little brother had broken his collarbone a few months ago during a Capsule Corps party, and Tatsuki had been in severe need of consolation. 

Pan sighed and shook her head. 

She felt bad about it; she knew that she and Bra weren't going to the same university, though both of them had applied to the same ones and tried their damnedest to pull it off. And while they'd gotten into one or two together, it had come down to a question of independence. Bra had accepted an internship with her brother that would pay enough to let her move out on her own while still attending classes. Pan didn't have that luxery and had to rely on scholarships; unfortunately, the only college that had offered a scholarship large enough to cover living expenses, on top of tuition, was at the other end of the country. 

She wasn't exactly looking forward to leaving all her friends behind. Not yet. 

Though she might as well have already done that at this point; she really didn't have time to spare anymore. Her life was a variation of eat-school-work-train-sleep-talk to boyfriend on the phone-sleep. Unless one of them went... 

A small car pulled up to the curb, the driver leaning across the passenger seat to open the door from the inside. 

"Need a lift?" 

Pan smiled thankfully and got in, giving Tatsuki a frozen kiss that made him breathe sharply through his teeth. His warm brown eyes twinkled as he cranked up the heater and pulled into traffic. 

"So how's my Panny?" 

"Confused and exhausted." 

He blinked, swatting blond hair from his face to look at her, concern creeping into his features. 

"What about?" 

She shrugged. "I just feel like I'm running around like a chicken with my head cut off. Something's got to give, but I don't know what." 

He nodded, lifting a hand to his mouth and pulling off his glove with his teeth. As an intrigued Pan watched, he tossed the glove behind him into the backseat and reached towards her, blindly groping for her hand, almost as if he was terrified that he'd be the straw that'd break her back. She smiled as she looked over at him in the dim light of the dashboard and the streetlights outside. Cradling his warm fingers in her gloved hands, she patted his hand reassuringly and relaxed back into the seat. 

"My car's going to smell like that damned fast food now, you _do_ realize that, I hope," he joked, looking over at her, relief creeping into his eyes as a blush of embarassment spread over his face. He could be paranoid sometimes, but it was cute. She'd never fault him for it; it made her feel like she had a real place in his life. 

She grinned. "Guess it's a good thing you like to eat the stuff, huh?" 

He smiled and retrieved his hand, using his teeth to pull his sleeve over his fingers before setting it back on the wheel. 

"Hey, how about we do something tomorrow? Call Bra or one of your other friends, invite them to go out to dinner or out to the hot springs with us?" 

"Bra hates tagging along with us, you know that. Says she feels like a third wheel." 

"Well, who says she has to be the only one to come? There's two seats back there...I can invite my brother. They get along pretty alright...why not, Panny? It'll be fun." He smirked over at her. "Besides, it's not like we'll have to pay; you get free food from your job, right?" 

Blue eyes turned slowly to brown, an eyebrow quirked upwards. Tatsuki grinned and laughed quietly for a few minutes, his warm voice filling the little car. Pan ground her teeth and waited until they hit a red light before planting the back of her hand in the center of his chest. 

He only laughed harder.

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A/N: In a quick note, I'd like to say I have every right to hate McDonald's: I've worked fast food. I haven't been able to eat it since. 

-Panabelle ;P  
www.angelfire.com/dbz/storytellers :: Shrine of the Saiyan Squirt: home to really long rants. 


	4. chapter 3::open window

Disclaimer: all spelling errors belong to notepad. 

A/N: Actually, for typing this thing in notepad (I needed a change of scenery ^.^), my spelling's not that bad. Anyhoo, I really did mean to get both this chapter and the one before up days ago...but...um...well, I forgot about the ff/fictionpress thing...oopsie! 

*********************************************  
**_GROW UP!!!_**  
chapter 3::open window

  
  


"_I'm not seeing the humor here._" 

Pan sighed, scratching her forehead with the heal of her palm. She'd known before she'd ever even picked up the phone to dial that Bra would be completely unenthralled with the prospect that Tatsuki had suggested. 

"Look, I know you're not fond of Tats, but this was his idea. And besides, I miss spending time with you." 

"_It's not_ Tatsuki _that bothers me, Pan. And you damned well know it._" 

Disgruntled but not discouraged, Pan _hurrumphed_ onto the end of her bed. 

"It's car ride, Bra; that's all you'll have to sit through. He's paying for both of us to spend the day at the hot spring, so it's not like we're all going to be in the same room all day. Just think of it as a free day of pampering." 

"_I'd be able to if it weren't for that jerkoff,_" Bra grumbled. Pan winced at the venom in her voice, hearing her toss something onto her dresser. Or maybe, judging by the sound of it, _hurl_ was the better word. Pan drew a deep breath, only to gag on the french fry stench that three showers and a bubblebath hadn't managed to wash away. She was beginning to think that her brain was permanently grease-stained. 

"Bra--" 

"_If it were anyone but Soshiki, I'd have no problem joining you at the drop of a hat. But I can't stand that halfbreed flunkie--_" 

"Bra?!" Pan cut in, her voice incredulous. "Can you hear yourself?" 

"_Shut up, you know what I mean!_" Bra spat angrily, her indignance covering the sound of Pan's laughter. 

"Bra, come with us. Please. I promise to make Soshiki suffer for every second he spends in your prensence," Pan sniggered, picking her towel up from the floor to rub at her still-damp hair. 

"_Oh, I can put him through hell on my own._" 

"I dunno, Bra. I mean, Soshi _does_ work at McDonald's..." 

"Watch_ me_," came a sadistically sick grin over the line. Pan didn't even want to know how she'd managed to do that. 

"So does this mean you're coming with us?" 

"_I'll be ready in half an hour._"

* * *

Bra hung up with her mind set on the destruction of her archnemesis. Grinning maliciously, she pulled a pink turtleneck sweater over her head and moved towards her dresser, searching for the purple tiger-print slipper she'd flung at it. 

It wasn't that she really _hated_ Soshiki. She actually liked the guy. 

She just couldn't stand him. 

Not to mention he reminded her a lot of her brother. 

Who had hogged the quilt, started crying like a baby when she'd kicked him out of her bed, and had played commando with his cereal at breakfast. And while the image of her big brother hunched over the table and turning little sugarcoated crunchies into soldiers was adorable, it wasn't so cute when said brother was 32 years old and in charge of the family business. 

Finding her slipper amidst lipstick and a curling iron, she stuffed her foot into it and yawned. Turning, she set her cordless phone in its cradle, turned of the lights, and left the room, heading for the stairs. 

"_Trunks! Get back down here! I need your help!_" 

Blue eyes rolled towards the ceiling as Bulma called up from the basement, the playroom-slash-lab that had been the site of her brother's imprisonment. She could hear her father foraging for food in the kitchen, grumbling to himself about the indecencies he suffered as the Saiyan no Ouji, forced to prepare his own meals. 

Other than that, the house was almost eerily quiet. Which meant Trunks was probably hiding like a scared child under his bed. 

Tying her shoulder-length blue hair into a tail at the nape of her neck, long bangs hanging along the sides of her face, she stepped out of the stairwell and moved into the kitchen. 

"Morning Daddy," she chirped merrily, grabbing her father's shoulders and sterring him towards the table and into a chair. "What were you thinking of for breakfast?" 

Vegeta _hurrumphed_ quietly, allowing her a half smile and a nod as she flounced back to the still-open fridge. Running her eyes over the contents in the refrigerator and the cheese and ham on the counter, she placed her money on omlettes and pulled out an industrial-sized carton of eggs. 

"Plans today?" 

Bra looked up as she cracked two eggs, one in each fist, peering over her shoulder at her father. Vegeta sat at the table where she'd put him: posture slouched but stiff, arms folded tightly over his chest, black eyes following her movements. She dumped the eggshells in the sink and lifted two more. 

She used to hate her family and had once longed for the stable normality of Pan's. She'd envied her the morning meal: father reading the paper, mother making breakfast, a familial gather around the table as they discussed their plans for the day... 

Then the sweeling around her brain had gone down and she'd remembered that normalcy was overrated. 

"Going to the hot srping with Pan, her boyfriend, and his brother," she replied cheerfully, cracking the twenty-fifth and twenty-sixth eggs, pouting as her hands only found one more. With a shrug, she cracked the last egg and depositied the shell into the sink, washing her hands before digging through a drawer for a whisk. 

"On whose authority?" her father asked sternly. She rolled her eyes with a smile as she attacked the helpless yellow blobs held prisoner in the stainless steel bowl. 

"Mine." 

The answer met his expectations and father and daughter fell into silence, enjoying each other's company. 

"Have either of you seen Trunks?" Bulma sighed wearily a few minutes later, shuffling on tired feet in a beeline towards the coffee pot. Bra smiled good morning and shook her head, ducking so that her exhausted mother could get into the cupboard abover her head. "No? Huh...I wonder where he's gone?" 

Bra watched as her mother poured herself a mug and set the pot back in the coffeemaker. 

"You look like you're going somewhere today, Sweetheart. What are your plans?" Bulma yawned and pulled a skillet out of a cupboard next to the stove, taking the bowl of eggs from her daughter. Without a word, Bra turned and opened the window above the sink as wide as it would go, ignoring the chill winter wind that was swept off of the newfallen snow outside. 

"Hot springs," she replied a moment later, rubbing her arms and crouching to dig through a drawer for the cheese grater. Pawing through bottle operners, knife sharpeners and measuring spoons, she grinned up at her mother. "Pan, Tatsuki, and his brother will be here to pick me up in about twenty minutes or so." 

Bulma nodded and Bra heard a spatula scrape against the bottom of the skillet. 

"I really liked his brother better. But I suppose it _is_ Pan's decision." 

Bra shrugged. "It's a unanimous vote against Tatsuki, but whatever. She's happy." Pulling the drawer out until it squealed in protest, she hestitated before she continued, trailing off in spite of herself. "Soshiki's just a big kid...kinda like Trunks...um..." 

Bulma looked down at her daughter, blue eyes watching her skeptically over the rim of a bright red coffee cup. 

Bra sighed and pawed listlessly through the drawer. "I mean, well, I really wish Trunks would grow up. He can be so immature sometimes... I mean, he's supposed to be not only my rolemodel, but my superior soon, right?" 

"He just _acts_ like a kid," Bulma replied, holding the mug before her and checking the eggs. "And only when he's sleep deprived. Although I will admit that it's rather agrevating after a while." 

"Then maybe you two could break at night?" Bra offered weakly, closing the drawer to check the next one up. 

Her mother nodded guility, turning to look thoughtfully out the window as a breeze ruffled her tee-shirt. "It would probably be for both of our benefits, wouldn't it...oh. There's your brother." 

Blinking, Bra stood to follow her mother's gaze, only to find her brother crouched in the dimensions of the frame wearing his winter coat and a pair of old blue jeans. Before she could react to his presence, he drew back his right arm and let it fly, flinging a tight ball of snow into her face. 

It hit her like a cold puppy kiss, only three times as hard and without the warm love. Stumbling back onto the floor, she lay there in stunned silence for a moment before sitting up with a start. Swiping angrily at the snow in her eyes, she sputtered to her feet. 

"Trunks!" He crouched precariously on the sill, grinning victoriously with his arms draped across his knees as he laughed. "Dammit Trunks!" she shrieked, rage welling up within her. "I've had it! I wish you would just--I wish you'd act your age!" 

He smirked and opened his mouth to reply, but seemed to lose his balance before he could find his voice through the laughter. He fell backwards, arms flailing wildly as a golden glow encompassed him, as if he thought to use his ki to catch himself. Wide blue eyes pierced her as his pinwheeling was lost beneath the window frame, and within heartbeats, he was out of sight. 

Bra stood there, frozen solid, startled and coming off her anger. She strained her ears, listening for the sound of a groan or a curse that would inevitably follow the _whump_ into the snow piled against the house, but no such _whump_ came, no groan or curse followed. Swallowing thickly, she looked back at her mother, who looked just as bewildered. 

After a moment of silence, the two blue-haired women burst into action, literally dropping everything and sprinting for the back door, running out into the snow in their socks and slippers. 

Trunks was lost in a daze, just picking himself up as they ran in jumping high-steps through the snow that was seeping into their socks to get to him. Turning slowly, he scratched absently at his head, disrupting the vibrantly purple hair that stuck up about his head. In the other hand he held his glasses, staring at them intently as if he'd never seen them before. 

Bra and Bulma slowed to a stop in knee-high snow, unable to find their voices. Somehow, he seemed to have grown taller, to have returned to that lanky yet muscular build he'd had until adopting the habit of stooping for hours on end over a desk. Though troubled, his eyes looked younger; his face held a baby-like quality it hadn't possessed for years. It was almost like looking at a photograph... 

"Tr-Trunks?" Bulma stammered, clutching at her tee-shirt. Trunks blinked and looked up at them breifly before returning his gaze to his glasses, shaking snow out of his hair. "Are...are you alright?" 

He nodded absently. 

"You know," he mused almost to himself, his voice lighter, not quite so deep. "Call me crazy, but...either I whacked my head hard enough to give myself 20/20 vision, or...you got your wish, Sis." 

Bra could only stand there with her mouth gaping open as Bulma's blue eyes rolled into her head and she fainted backwards into the snow.

**********************************************  
A/N: Bwa ha ha ha ha! 

-Panabelle ;P  
www.angelfire.com/dbz/storytellers :: Shrine of the Saiyan Squirt: providing more than the ordinary 


	5. chapter 4::shock

Disclaimer: ... wit.exe failed ... reloading backup systems ... 

A/N: I am so exhausted you wouldn't believe; add in last week (which was from hell) and the fact that I'm not prepared for this week at all, a lot of website stuff I need to do but don't have time for, the beginning of a cold, physical pain from last week, dizzy spells, and a lot of early morning boredom, and it's a wonder Belle still remembers how to write. 

Er...should I mention I've had this chapter done for about a week and a half? Please...Belle need feedback...Belle need know people are writing this...Belle need a nappie-poo... *sniffles* 

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**_GROW UP!!!_**  
chapter 4::shock

  
  


Goku flattened himself to the roof, instinctively covering his head, though they'd never see him even if they thought to look. 

"Bulma's gonna _kill_ me," he whined, watching in horror as Trunks and Bra crouched over the woman, hair falling into each of their faces. He swallowed thickly, reluctantly noting that there was no physical age difference between them. 

He hadn't _meant_ to grant Bra's wish. He actually didn't know _how_ he'd done it, to tell the truth. Goku'd been keeping tabs on his family and friends over the last four years, and had decided to see what the Briefs were up to this morning. Of all mornings. He'd gotten there just in time for the snowball incident and Bra's wish. 

He'd been standing right behind Trunks when Bra had made that wish, and because he'd been laughing so hard, he supposed it had managed to slip around the guards he'd been forced to set up around his mind. The guards that were supposed to _prevent_ this from happening. And when Trunks had lost his balance and fallen onto him... 

Goku squirmed as he watched Trunks lift Bulma into a piggyback hold with the help of his sister. The boy looked confused, his glasses shoved into a pocket, his eyes lost in thought. Bra looked like she was functioning on autopilot. 

"Ah, _man_!" he cried to himself, rubbing the back of his head with two large paws, as if ChiChi had threatened him with her skillet. "_Now_ what am I supposed to do?"

* * *

Trunks leaned back against a cupboard, legs dangling off the edge of the counter, absently poking his stomach with a finger. It was his stomach that made it perfectly clear that by some will of Dende, he was eighteen, nineteen, twenty years old again. He hadn't been _this_ hungry since high school. 

His father was at the stove, finishing the omlette that had been abandoned after he'd fallen out of the window. That Bulma had been making before Bra had gone offhinge and made that wish. 

Trunks turned his blue eyes towards his sister, still in shock over the fact that the world was in perfect clarity. Bra would probably want to use his glasses because she obviously didn't trust her eyes on their own; she was still standing in the doorway with wide pupilless eyes, looking as if she'd just been told that Pan was pregnant with his kid. 

In all fairness though, he felt as if he'd just been told the same thing. 

"Great," his mother was muttering, hunkered over a cup of scalding coffee, nearly lost behind the table, wrapped up in his jacket. "As if _one_ teeneaged saiyan wasn't enough to feed, now I've got _another_, and _this_ one's appetite rivals _Goku's_." 

His father smirked as he slid the giant omlette onto a plate, cutting a small pie-like wedge to lay to the side. "You've been given an opportunity to get stronger, Boy. I would suggest you use it." 

Trunks would have paled if he didn't already feel like he'd been completely drained. He watched mutely as his father carried the plate to the table, turning it so that the small wedge was before his mother. When Vegeta glanced back at him, Trunks offered a full and terrified smile, his eyelids disappearing back into his head and his lips pulling away from his teeth. 

"I...I don't understand," Bra mumbled, finally blinking. She lifted a hand, pushing a fistfull of blue hair from her eyes. "I...I wished he'd act his age...why's...why's he _my_ age? I mean..." 

"Look at it this way, Sweeite," Bulma sighed, resting her elbow on the table and her chin against her knuckles. "If anyone of us had wished for Goku to act his age, we'd have had a 12 year old saiyan running around." 

"Like we did," Trunks yawned, poking his stomach one last time before pulling his shirt down. If he wasn't so confused, he'd get up and lay seige on the refrigerator, but that would mean finding out that this wasn't some horrible dream. "If it weren't for what happened to Goku, I don't think even _I_ would be willing to considering your wish as even an _imaginary_ option." 

"But why _my_ age?" Bra cried, stomping her feet in frustration, her slippers making a squelching sound on the linoleum. "Do you realize how badly you've just ruined my life?" 

"Hey!" he snapped, jumping down from the counter to tower over her, two pairs of crystal blue eyes boring into each other. "Do you think I _want_ to live through raging hormones again? Do you think I _want_ to live the next fourteen years _over_ while my best friend is getting married with the snow melts? How the hell am I supposed to show my face in the office now--I already have problems with my authority being undermined simply because half the office staff is obsessed with me! It was _your_ wish Bra, _you_ made it." 

Bra growled at him desperately, clenching her fists at her sides and baring her teeth. He mirrored her, his hackles raised. But before either could come to blows of the verbal or physical variety, the doorbell sounded throughout the house and Bra broke away, panic spreading across her face like oil over water. 

"Shit! They're here!" She leapt past her brother, hopping as she ripped off her wet socks and squishing slippers. "_STAY!!_" she spat at him as she sprinted up the stairs. 

Trunks sighed and turned to look at the refrigerator. There was no use trying to deny this any longer. Shrugging his shoulders, he opened the refridgerator and pulled over a chair, resting his feet on a shelf as he gnawed on a wedge of cheese.

* * *

"You're mine, Son! Get your scrawny ass back here!" 

Pan laughed maniacally as she sprinted through the snow, stooping as she ran to snowplow a handful of powder into her hands, packing as she sought cover behind the hedges. Snowballs hailed down around her and she squawked as one pegged her shoulder. 

"You'll never take me alive, Soshiki!" she cried, making a break into the open, dashing past Tatsuki's apple green hyundai, grinning broadly at him as he waved from within. White missles exploded on the windshield and she sped past, still holding her own snowball. 

"Then I'll just have to take you dead!" he cried back. He was light on his feet and making easy progress across the snow behind her, but she wasn't a sitting duck. Pivoting on her heels and shoving a foot before her into the snow, she slid to a stop. Drawing back her arm, she let her projectile fly, letting out a whoop as the white bomb made contact with her target. Soshiki flew backwards in a windmill of blond and green hair, black pants, and leather jacket. Almost as soon as he was down, he was back on his feet, swiping white snow from brown eyes, packing together a new clip as he watched her gloat and prance away. 

"I'd like to see you try!" 

"You're not invincible, pan," he told her with a crooked smile, pushing away green streaked hair from his face. "Especially since you promised to play at _my_ level." 

Without warning he was off and running, oblivious to his brother who sat in the warm haven of his car, laughing hysterically. Pan dodged the first two snowballs easily, crunching through the heavy crust of snow by the house and making it to the relative safety of the front door. He was somewhere behind her, but she'd labeled the front door as home base, which meant "throw snowball in this direction and suffer the consequences". Raising her hand to the doorbell again, she glaced back over her shoulder, just in time to see Soshiki pull back his arm and fling it forward. Instinctively, she ducked. 

And stood up with a start when she heard the distinct sound of snowball hitting flesh. 

Made more distinct by a strangled whimper. 

"Ah shit," Soshiki breathed, his eyes wide. Slowly, Pan turned, watching as Bra stood there, her face covered in snow, still as stone. Usually a good sign that she was on the verge of "kill". 

But Bra only let a shiver ripple through her as she wiped at the snow on her face and closed the door. Pan watched, baffled, as Bra smiled and asked how long they were going to be gone. 

"Um, Bra? Are you ok?" she asked quietly, just as prepared as Soshiki for the pending explosion. 

"Fine!" she cried suddenly, clutching tightly at the collar of her coat with 2 sets of white knuckles. "I'm fine!" 

"Riiight," Pan drawled, raising an eyebrow as she watched Bra squirm. "You sure?" 

Bra tittered in a way that could only be described as giddy and nervous. 

_What is going_ on _with her?_ Pan mused worriedly, watching skeptically as Bra hurried towards Tatsuki and the Hyundai, calling over her shoulder that if they didn't hurry she wouldn't be able to gen an all-day treatment. 

Soshiki moved towards her, setting a hand on her shoulder. Pan turned her eyes to him, meeting warm grey eyes that voiced the worry screaming in her heart. 

"I think I broke her," he said simply, watching the blue haired girl walk through the snow as if half asleep. Pan swallowed thickly and nodded as he applied pressure to her shoulder, steering her towards the car.

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A/N: please review this. with _more_ than "you made Trunks young!" and please don't say "I didn't think you were going to write anymore". I need actual _feedback_ here ppls. Please? 

-Panabelle *insert dead smiley face here* 


	6. chapter 5::breathe

Disclaimer: do I gotta? 

A/N: Um...ok, I admit the last chapter was a little whiny. Sorry about that. I think I'm making up for my lack of writing angsty stories by writing angsty a/n's. ^.^ Last week just really really sucked and I am sick. Anyways, this is my favorite chapter so far. 

I love my boys. ^.^ 

*************************************************  
**_GROW UP!!!_**  
chapter 5::breathe

  
  


_Breathe_, she commanded herself, fists knotted in her lap, eyes trained on the passing scenery. _Breathe or they'll know something's up._

Beside her, Soshiki coughed into his fist and folded his arm across his stomach, his other arm draped along the back of the seat. His knees were jammed against the back of Pan's seat, legs akimbo. He was laughing at something Pan had said, his eyes shut and his mouth curled into an open smile. His brother was chuckling quietly, forearms draped lazily on top of the steering wheel as he sank into the fuzzy seat cover. Tatsuki's brown eyes were trained on the road, occasionally flickering to Pan beside him or to the rearview mirror and his brother. Pan was trying to make the best of the situation, sitting sideways and facing Tatsuki so that she didn't have her back to anyone. 

Their laughter was genuine and the conversation was easy, but the atmosphere of the car was strained. There was something that they were all talking around. 

Bra knew that they were talking around what was wrong with her. 

_Tree, tree, tree, tree..._ she chanted, listing off whatever was flying by her window. Her head hurt. Her eyes ached. She wanted to strangle something. 

"You mean Old Man Wantanabe almost caught you?" Soshiki was saying, his hand tapping out some rhythm on the seat back behind her head. His fingers occasionally caught her hair, playing with the strands as if he were strumming a guitar. 

How the hell long had he been doing that? 

"Yeah, it was pretty embarrassing," Pan admitted, pulling off the blue bandana that Trunks had given her years ago. She'd worn her hair in pigtails again, but she'd tied them in little knots so that the ends of her black hair splayed upwards and stuck up behind her head. Bra smiled at her friend's reflection in the glass; ever since she'd started to take the time, she'd found some really cute styles. 

"You're a bad influence on her, Big Brother," Soshiki laughed, sitting forward and resting his arm along the back of Pan's seat, pulling the other away from Bra and draping it across his knees. "Teaching her to play computer games in class." 

"Weren't _you_ the one who taught her how to slack off?" Tatsuki countered, reaching over and pulling the bandana away from Pan and ducking his head through it, tucking the knot under his nose. Pan laughed. 

_Tree, tree, tree, tree, dead skunk, tree, tree, tree..._ She was close to hyperventilating-Trunks had always done the same thing when he'd baby-sat them. _Bwa ha ha, such delicious morsels I've stolen_, he'd always said. _Although_ that _one looks spoiled and this one would probably be a little tough...oh well, slaves! Do my bidding!_

_Tree, tree, tree, tree..._

"Nah," Soshiki laughed, tugging on the silver stud in his right ear before leaning back, setting his head near her shoulder. "B'd already taught her that. Didn'tcha BB?" 

She growled, shoving his head as far away from her as her arm was long. 

"Actually, Bra's always paid better attention than I have," Pan informed them in a matter-of-fact tone, as if proud of it. "Probably because she was never home schooled. Although she _does_ have this tendency to sleep through math lately..." 

Bra could _feel_ the sick and twisted grin spreading across the face of her nemesis. 

"Reeeeeeeally..." 

"Mmhmm. She was asleep when Wantanabe almost caught me, actually. She usually plays look out for me when I'm goofing off." 

"Awww," Soshiki cried, turning to face her with eyes that seemed to sparkle with fatherly pride. "BeeBee was asweep! I'm so pwoud!" 

_Tree, tree, tr...what the fuck did he just say?!_

She whirled, baring her teeth at him as his eyes shone at the prospect of another one of their duels. 

"Yeah, like _you_ obviously were when you last got your hair done," she spat, crossing her arms over her chest. "The only blonds _I_ know with electric green streaks are on the swim team." 

"We have a swim team?" he replied, raising an eyebrow, a silver ring glinting against blond hair and pale skin. 

"Yeah, I'm _on_ it," she replied. 

"Oooh, wait, that'd be the club with the gay guys in Speedos, right? That you joined just because you'd have an _excuse_ to wear nothing?" 

She snarled, knuckles cracking as she made choking motions with her hands. "I seem to remember you cheering me on during those swim meets." 

He shrugged and leaned forward, draping an arm over her shoulder, whispering into her ear just loud enough so that the others could hear. "I'll tell you a secret-you may want to suggest to the coach that someone fix the pool heater. You girls sure do get _cold_ during those matches." 

"_WHAT?!_" 

"_Ooo_," Pan laughed from the front seat. Tatsuki bit his lip and sniggered, his nose still upturned by the bandana knot. 

Soshiki sat there and grinned at her like the pervert he was. She threw him off of her. 

"You know, now that I think about it, maybe green _does_ suit you. More proof that you're a lecherous, pervert halfbreed flunkie and that spending time with you is toxic to one's mental health." 

"Well, at least it isn't permanent. Unlike yours. You'll be forever marked as the Queen Bringer of Blue Balls." 

Bra's mouth dropped open and she froze, one finger raised in the air before her. She didn't have a comeback! Normally, she'd have a comeback for this! It was an easy one, left wide open! All she had to do was ask how _he_ knew that, that she did it just for him, but it was too late! She'd missed it! 

Soshiki seemed to be waiting for her to respond, and came to the same conclusion that she had: she was off. Something had twiddled with the connections in her brain and added five seconds of lag between receiving and responding. 

"I _thought_ I broke you," he mumbled to himself. She blinked, confused. 

"What?" 

"Forget it," he sighed, falling back into his former position: one arm draped over his stomach, the other along the back of the seat. He turned his face to the window, eyes straying to the snow-covered trees whizzing past. "Your heart's not in this. Consider this a draw." 

She ground her teeth, glaring daggers at the back of his head as his fingers went back to playing with her hair. When he continued to ignore her, she snorted in contempt and snapped her head around to look out her own window. 

"Shiki's right, Lady Bra," Tatsuki piped up quietly, pulling Pan's bandana down around his neck. "You just aren't yourself today. What's going on in that blue head of yours? You ok?" 

Panic swirled around in her gut and she tried to squelch the feeling. "I'm fine," she replied, a little too quickly for any of them to believe her. She cringed at her own voice, twisting to face Tatsuki in the side mirror and tell him again. But the sight of him wearing her brother's old kerchief like that rendered her paralyzed and she whipped her head to stare back out her window, breathing like a caged animal. They'd never let her live it down if they found out what she'd done to Trunks. The bastard next to her especially-he'd use it as ammunition against her until the day she ripped off his arms, his legs from his torso and his vocal chords out of his neck. And even then... 

Pan wouldn't believe her, and then, once she did, she'd kill her. She'd- 

No-wait. Pan would be absolutely ecstatic. She'd had a crush on Trunks for years; she'd see this as her golden opportunity and would completely forget about Tatsuki. Which might possibly be for the better, but the guy was too decent and nice to deserve that. The guy opened her door for her and Bra _both_ whenever they got into and out of his car! Besides, she had to find a way to turn her brother back, which meant that- 

"Bra? Bra, you ok?" Pan was worried. Her blue eyes were scrutinizing her. Shit! She knew! She knew-or at least she thought she knew. She knew something was wrong. 

Bra's hands went clammy. 

"Fine!" she cried frantically, her voice trapped in her throat, which had closed off so much that she felt like she was trying to yell through a straw. "I'm fine! Fine-I'm fine! I'm fine-fine. Just fine." 

Great, she was freaking out. This was _not_ the time for this. Hadn't she already freaked out on her brother? No. No, that had been testing the water to tell if her wish had come true. Every hair on the back of her neck was standing on end; her heart was beating so fast that she was sure it would explode any second now. She did _not_ need reality to set in right now. _No_. She'd get home and her mother would have figured out how to turn him back and everything would be perfectly ok again. 

But what if they couldn't turn him back? Shit! She didn't need this, not now! Not now, not here, not with the halfbreed flunkie watching her. Not with-shit. They _were_ watching her! Her heart beat harder; she couldn't even hear her blood rushing through her temples any longer. She'd gone deaf! 

"I really do think I may have scrambled her with that snowball," she heard Soshiki mumble. Or did she read his lips? He was talking to himself again, he did a lot of that. That was it! She'd lost her mind and could hear the voices he was always talking to! Oh no. It was over! _She_ was over! Wait...she couldn't hear him anymore, she _was_ deaf! Or was he waiting for the voices to reply? 

No, he was listening to something Pan was saying. Wai! She really _was_ deaf! She flattened herself against the door, hyperventilating. 

They knew! They _had_ to know! How could they _not_ know? One look at her and there was no denying it! Her life was ruined! 

She had to find a way to turn her brother back to normal. Like, _now_. She'd pray-yes, pray. Pray and hope and wish and dream, isn't that what had gotten her into this mess? That was it! She'd wish! She'd wish really really hard! Clenching wild blue eyes shut, she made a fervent demand from whatever devil had wrought this on her wonderful existence that he take it back. Did it work? She opened her eyes again and looked around the car. 

All three of them were staring at her like she'd just grown an arm from her forehead. They knew! She'd wished to the wrong God, and he'd let them hear! Oh no, what if she had wished out loud? She wouldn't ever know if she had-she couldn't even hear the engine or the radio. They knew! They knew and they were going to kill her! The halfbreed would kill her for hurting his brother, his brother would hurt her from taking Pan away from him, and Pan would kill her for not doing this ages ago! 

She clapped her hands over her broken ears, swaying back and forth as the inability to hear began to affect her balance. It was over, she was over. She'd be incarcerated, forced to make shoes in China with the starving children for minimal wages! She'd never get to wear designer jeans again, never feel the sheen of lipgloss across her lips... 

"WAAAAAAAAI!" she cried, the pitch of her own voice piercing through her hysteria. She could hear? She could hear! She wasn't deaf! But wait...that meant...that meant that she could hear them now...that meant that... 

"What's going on, Bra?" the halfbreed was demanding. His brother was looking at her nervously, chattering on about how they understood and would be there for her. 

It meant that she had to face the music, had to admit to everything. 

"Bra, Bra are you sick?" Pan asked worriedly. 

Bra shook her head wildly, fighting her way from her seatbelt and pinning herself against the door behind her. Oh Gods, oh Gods oh Dende, they knew! Her vision blurred as she clawed at the seat cushion, clawing at the door behind her, searching for the handle that dug into the small of her back. 

"I'm fine! I'm fine!" she cried. The three passed skeptical glances at each other and then the halfbreed unbuckled his seatbelt, bracing his hand and a knee on the seat between then, leaning forward towards her. She screamed, planting a foot in the middle of his chest and shoving him away from her, whirling and fighting with the doorknob, turning it around and around-why wouldn't it open? She could feel the cold air, but she was still trapped inside. 

Dammit! Why'd her life have to turn out like this? How come her brother at the very least couldn't have turned into the big baby he was? Then they could just pass him off as a new little brother! Or better yet, how come he couldn't have turned into a grapefruit? She liked grapefruit, there was nothing wrong with grapefruit. 

_GRAPEFRUIT COULDN'T RUIN HER LIFE, DAMMIT ALL TO HELL!!!_

The handle wouldn't turn any more and she looked up, startled as hell to find the window open. Freedom! Escape! She scrambled through it, feeling a hand clasp around her ankle. In desperation, she kicked out, meeting something solid, something that gave but that didn't seem to want to give. The others cried out as she tumbled out into the snow, crawling through it desperately, unable to get her feet under her to find purchase. 

"God dammit, get back here, Bra!" the halfbreed roared. Behind her the door flew open. She shrieked and whirled, flinging snow at him before getting her feet under her and stumbling through the snow in leaps. 

Her brother was lying in the snow-she had to bury him, cover him up before the others saw. Hide him until she could fix this. That was it! She'd just hide it! She'd hide everything! 

Her vision blurred as she heard car doors slam behind her and heavy footsteps slamming through the delicate snow. She staggered, pressing her hands to her eyes. Arms flung themselves around her and she shrieked, fighting them off. _Breathe_ they said. The disembodied arms hauled her back against a tree. A very warm tree. _Just breathe, Bra, come on, it's alright..._

The tree spoke quietly into her ears as the arms very slowly loosened around her middle. She breathed in when it told her to, out when it had decided she had enough air in her lungs. She kept her eyes closed, unable to face the reality she had plunged herself into. 

"Come on, Bee," she heard the halfbreed murmur into her ear, the arms around her pulling away, steady and gentle hands lighting firmly on her shoulder as they rubbed the tight kinks from her neck. "You'll be alright, just breathe… Pan!" he called over his shoulder, his voice moving away from her. "Melt some snow-if she eats it like it is she'll only get dehydrated." 

Bra swallowed thickly, slowly returning to herself, the easy repetition of Soshiki's thumbs rubbing the nape of her neck bringing her back to herself, his voice a tentative link with reality. Her panic subsided, her mind clearing. Detachment settled back over her mind, the full extent the day's actions seeping in through the cracks that her hysteria had chipped into her psyche. Adrenalin ran through her veins, her whole body quivering as the pent up energy tried to find some way out. 

"You ok now?" Soshiki asked quietly, his hands brushing against the sides of her face, pulling back blue hair that hung wildly in her eyes. He knotted it into his fist, the tension a welcome relief. She opened her eyes slowly, clenching them quickly shut as the world swung in and out of focus and spun around her. 

She swallowed thickly, her gorge rising as Soshiki's fingers glissed her cheeks again for stray strands of hair. Her body flung her forward into the snow as her throat struggled to keep back the bile, pulling him in a mad dive after her. Hot and pungent bile burned the back of her mouth and coated her tongue, made her eyes tear as she caught her self with her hands. Soshiki stumbled, trying not to step on her or to yank her hair from her scalp. 

She trembled, her stomach gave one last heave, and she dry retched into the snow.

* * *

One of the worst tastes in the world was eggs. He liked eggs, but when they decided to come back up and revisit his taste buds, they ranked down there with-judging by the smell-the flavor of dog shit. 

One knee planted heavily into the snow, the other supporting his upper body as he crouched in an awkward position, half straddling her and half behind her, he was very much regretting the choice of breakfast he'd made that morning. Tatsuki made eggs that could rock one's world, but when he begged his brother to make them, things like this usually tended to happen. 

Her upper body heaved below him and he struggled to keep the contents of his own stomach where they belonged-in his digestive track. He was just happy that she didn't seem to have had anything in her stomach to begin with; he was a sympathetic spewer. The last thing he needed to do was barf in her hair. 

Clenching shut his eyes, he breathed deeply, gently winding her hair around his fist and rubbing her back, focusing his attention only on the tension in her shoulders. After a few minutes, the terrible gagging noise stopped, followed by coughing and spitting. 

"You ok, now?" he asked softly, watching as she lifted a hand, pulling away the stray strands of hair that clung to her cheeks. "Or is there still something in there?" 

She didn't say anything, only coughed violently towards the snow, her voice hoarse and eyes clenched shut. 

Pan ran up beside them as he tempted God and wrapped his arms around Bra's middle, gently pulling her against him and helping her to her feet. She trembled violently, as if she hadn't been finished, but made no move that she still had friends for the snow. He held her against his chest, waiting for her to get her legs back, trying his best to ignore the eggish bile that coated the back of his throat. 

"Feeling better?" Pan asked quietly as she handed the pale and sweating girl an empty soda can full of melted snow. Bra shook her head weakly, and he shuffled them around so that she could see the face of the worried girl, but explicitly so that he could kick snow over her mess. Pan's eyes were anxious as she studied Bra's face. The two locked gazes and, knowing Pan, she was making a silent promise that they would talk about this later. 

"Where's Tats?" he sighed, running a hand back through his hair, looking around worriedly for his older brother. 

"Digging through the trunk for some blankets," Pan replied as she swept hair from her friend's eyes, Bra taking slow, small sips from the can, cupping it tightly between her hands like a warm cup of cocoa. "He's already pulled out the first aid kit." 

"He shouldn't be out here," Soshiki muttered disapprovingly, looking across the expanse of snow that was still very disturbed from Bra's frantic flight and his pursuit. Absently, he held a hand to his forehead, wiping away what he could of the blood that was starting to freeze against his temple. _Damn_ that girl could kick. 

"We're not too far from the hot springs," Pan soothed, rubbing a warm hand against Bra's shoulder. "Besides, it's not like him to just sit and watch you get the shit beaten out of you." 

Soshiki snorted quietly, happy that Bra hadn't slammed her shoe into his nose. He stooped his shoulders and turned his head, peering into her dulled eyes. "Gonna be sick again?" 

She shook her head and moved to stand on her own, but her knees were still shaky and she teetered. He and Pan moved to catch her before she could faceplant into the mess she'd made in the snow, supporting her between them. 

"I'm fine," Bra mumbled, lifting a shivering hand to touch her forehead. "I'm just..." 

Trusting Pan to hold her, he shrugged out of his jacket, the worn, silk-lined leather sliding from bare arms, down into his fists. The cold air attacked him viciously, tearing at the shirtsleeves he'd rolled up to his shoulders, pulling angrily at the hair on his arms. Gently, ignoring the cold as he usually did, he draped the jacket over Bra's shoulders, taking the soda can from her so that she could get her arms through the sleeves. A kind of bewilderment passed over her face as she complied, looking up at him, her eyes completely lost. Gently, he stooped, bracing an arm against her back and tucking the other under her knees, lifting him against his chest. She started and her eyes flew open, her hand sweeping almost instinctively towards his head. 

"I'm perfectly capable of walking on my own," she spat as her palm connected with his cheek, her voice weak, most of the fire still gone from her voice. He took the slap without shame, letting her hit him in full. 

_There's her spark_, he laughed silently to himself, privately gloating in the fact that he'd successfully goaded her at least once today. She'd been off ever since he'd pegged her with that snowball, bright white snow falling from a pale face that didn't seem to realize where, when, or what the hell she was. 

"No brother in his right mind would let his sister stand shivering in the snow when there's a nice warm car less than a dozen paces away," he laughed gently, following the halo of light reflecting off of Pan's hair as she walked to his brother's Hyundai. "And your brother is one of the last people on Earth I would ever want riding my ass for not taking care of you." 

She stiffened immediately, panic rising back into her eyes. He froze and dropped to one knee in the snow, not quite sure if he should lower her back to the ground or carry her back towards the trees. The panic that rose in her eyes at the mention of her brother was practically contagious and his eyes shot to his own brother, who was hopping lightly in place beside the car, blowing into his fists as he waited to open the door for him. Pan stood beside him, trying to convince him to wrap one of the blankets around himself. 

Soshiki breathed a sigh of relief; his brother only looked a little worse for wear, his nerves probably frazzled from the scare Bra had given them. But his face didn't look ragged, and he obviously still had energy enough to bounce around like that, knowledge that assuaged the fear that had risen in his chest. Beside him, Pan looked absolutely terrified. 

"I don't think she's ever seen her act like this," he mumbled absently, his eyes searching Pan's face for some hint of what to do. 

"I don't think _I've_ ever seen me like this." 

He blinked, turning his eyes back to Bra, who was huddled as small as she could make herself in his arms. There was a profound guilt in her blue eyes that he knew well, one that he knew better than to probe into, no matter how much he wanted to know what was going on. 

"Are you sure you're ok, B?" he asked her quietly, rocking back onto his heal and getting both feet back under him. She nodded simply, offering him a meek "Just problems at home" with an ironic smile. He supplied a grim half grin as he moved forward and set her in the car, nodding to his brother to close the door. 

"Shiki, you ride in back with her," Pan ordered. "It'll make it easier for me to clean your wound if I'm the one sitting backwards." 

He nodded as she moved around to the other side of the car, standing beside his brother in the cold. Tatsuki sneezed quietly. 

"You shouldn't be out here," he chided as her door closed. Tatsuki sighed. 

"I'm fine, Little Brother. I'm more worried about Bra." 

Soshiki nodded and raked a hand back through his hair, briefly meeting his brother's eyes. Tatsuki's hair hung over his face and he raised a hand to bat it aside, as Soshiki looked down through the window at the girl who was huddling against the door, probably freezing right now. Soshiki was glad Tats had taken the time to roll the window back up while the girl was liberating her breakfast. 

"One of the three of us is going home with her tonight," he grumbled sternly. "I won't stand for her brother to let something bother her this badly."

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A/N: ^.^ *huggles her Soshiki-kun* (yes, I actually know the whole -kun/-chan/-san thing. I just don't like to use it so mneh *sticks out tongue*) I love my boys. 

Remember, smiles are free at McDonald's. So, make with the reviews and I'll make with the chapters. And Pan will make with the smiles. 

-Panabelle ;P  
www.angelfire.com/dbz/storytellers :: Shrine of the Saiyan Squirt::chock full of angst-ilicious goodness! 


	7. chapter 6::damage

Disclaimer: you know, after a while, pink just begins to look radioactive. 

A/N: *cowers under desk* Yeesh! Before I even _post_ I'm getting attackled for being alive. *looks pointedly at Pia* Anyways, I'm _really_ sorry I haven't posted _anything_ lately. I've had a lot on my plate. Even _I'm_ willing to admit that I was gone far too long this time (*sniffles* stupid soc. teacher *sniff*), so I'm giving you half a chapter. Yes, only half. I have the next couple of chapters drafted, but I just don't have the time to type anymore. *wails* Anyways, here's the first half of chapter 6. Enjoy all...hopefully I'll get the rest typed up before May *crosses fingers*

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**_GROW UP!!!_**  
chapter 6::damage (part 1)

  
  


"Ow!" 

Trunks rubbed at his arm, glaring at his mother as she walked away holding a syringe of his blood. That was the third vile she'd stolen. Why couldn't she have just drawn a pint and called it good? 

Hell, his father was itching for a fight and he was happy to have the sludge beaten out of him. Take the blood that way. _Any_thing to beat his hormones into submission. 

"Don't be such a baby," Bulma replied absently, pulling up data from the regeneration tanks she'd built when he was a kid. "You've been beaten to within an inch of your life more times than I care to think about and have walked away unscathed every time. I sincerely doubt my little needle hurt you _that_ much." 

"It _could_ have," he muttered, leaning back onto his forearm and poking his stomach. They'd been down here for an hour and a half, Bulma testing his DNA and blood against recent records and records from his childhood, trying to determine the full extend of the damage Bra's wish had manifested. 

And he _did_ mean _damage_. The refrigerator was clanking in ways it hadn't clanked since the squirt was born and nothing could disrupt Capsule Corp's image anymore than that wish already had. 

Then there was the matter of his hormones... 

He poked his stomach again. He'd forgotten how violent hunger pangs could be; he felt as though he hadn't eaten anything in days. 

"What do _you_ think of all this, Trunks?" 

He blinked and pushed himself to attention, reaching out to take a diagnostic printout from Gohan. The eldest Son had been giving him funny looks ever since Bulma had called him three hours ago, telling him that 'there was a bit of an emergency' and 'would he mind coming over to help her deal with it?' Trunks wasn't quite sure, but he was willing to swear that Gohan was looking at him as if he couldn't trust him. 

In all truth, he wouldn't _blame_ Gohan if that were the truth. He didn't trust himself _either_. 

Although he had a feeling that Gohan was more worried about his daughter than about what Trunks might do with his newfound youth. 

"I think I want to be thirty-two again," he mumbled, hiding beneath lavender bangs from Gohan's steady black gaze. Pan only complicated matters. Sure, he'd _al_ways been terrified of women, even in high school when he'd known what he was doing: they held a power over him that he'd never given any of them power to have. Pan was one of those girls who not only had _that_ power, but also the actual physical _strength_ to take advantage of it. There'd be no escaping her if she set her mind to ensnaring him, just like when he used to babysit her and she wanted ice cream. 

Only, now, she wasn't four years old. The closest thing he'd get to babysitting this time around was… 

"Trunks?" 

_Open the flood gates! Power all engines to full! Full steam ahead!_

Silently, Trunks mentally squished the Scottish brain-mechanic that decided his head needed to be the color of fresh picked tomatoes. Forcing back the blush, he looked up at Gohan. 

"You alright?" 

He nodded, fumbling with the diagnostics. "I...er..." Crap. What was he going to say? He couldn't exactly tell Gohan that he was terrified Pan was going to man-rape him. It was best to lie. But the problem with the Sons was, well, they'd buy it. Most of the time. Except for ChiChi, but he was willing to swear up and down that she was psychic. Swallowing thickly, he struggled for an excuse. Dammit, he'd always been good at this as a kid. What could he... 

His face flushed again as his stomach threw itself angrily against his diaphram, kidneys, and the wall of flesh that separated it from going and raiding the kitchen on its own. The primal screams of his irate stomach echoed through the lab. His teeshirt trembled as if it'd just been told a horde of starving moths were coming to collect on a debt it owed them. Trunks grinned sheepishly, holding out his hands palm up as he shrugged. 

Gohan laughed wholeheartedly, his face splitting into a wide grin. Trunks sighed, scratching his head and setting a foot on the edge of the table, perching the diagnostics against his leg as he leaned back against his forearms. 

"I feel sorry for you Bulma. Not only do you have Vegeta and Bra to feed, but now you have this bottomless pit as well." 

"Black hole, is more like it," she muttered absently, leaning back in her chair and pressing the rim of her coffee cup to her lips, cupping the mug in both hands as she watched the computer run the comparisons. 

Trunks grumbled and set his gaze to the page Gohan had handed him, his eyes scanning the numbers and his mind pulling out the propper figures. Gohan leaned back against the table, crossing his arms over his chest, watching him curiously with those wide black eyes that never seemed to miss anything but that always managed to miss just enough to assure Trunks that Judgement Day was not yet upon him. 

Wary under the older man's gaze, Trunks blinked, throwing the corpse of the dead scotsman in his head onto the pile of figures he'd put in short-term memory to keep them from wriggling away. Slowly, he looked up, nervously meeting black eyes with blue. 

"Sorry...I just find this whole situation rather amusing." 

Trunks grumbled, shaking his head, snagging his now-useless glasses from the edge of the table, twirling them around on one leg. "Feh. Everyone does, except for me and Bra. Don't get me wrong or anything - under different circumstances, I'd actually enjoy this. But I have responsibilities to Capsule Corps and to Goten - and to myself - that I can't just drop. And being like this only complicates things." He shook his head, smacking the page in front of him with his glasses. "According to this thing, me as I'm _supposed_ to be and me _now_ are two different people: everything matches perfectly up until I turned 19. After that, everything from scar tissue to the drop in metabolism to bone fractures to probably anything else Mom can think of doing to me, might as well have just," he fumbled for the word, eventually making an all-encompassing gesture with his hands. "It doesn't exist, didn't happen, or _won't_ happen for another 10 years." 

Trunks sobbed quietly to himself, flopping back onto the table, glaring at the ground as his upper torso hung off the side. Crossing his arms across his chest, he shook his head, kicking angrily at the air on the other side of the table. "As if it wasn't terrible enough to live through the _first_ time, now I've got an _older_ Bra to deal with. Which was terrifying enough in itself, but now I have to worry about her making more crazy wishes. If I'm not careful, I'll wind up in the hospital with no balls and boobs sprouting from my chest." 

Gohan laughed, harder this time than he did the first. Trunks sighed heavily, shaking his head, handfuls of lavender hair swaying back and forth beneath him. 

"You know, what I don't understand is how that wish was granted in the first place." 

He blinked, latching a hand onto the edge of the table and hauling himself upright, gazing curiously at his mother as she turned her chair around on it's axis, setting her coffee cup on the edge of her desk. Absently, she batted a lock of blue hair from her eyes, crossing her legs. 

"On one hand, there's the fact that the wish should never have come true," she continued, cupping the back of her head in her hands, the arms of her sweatshirt bunching around her elbows. "Goku and the Dragonballs have been gone for almost four full years, and I'm sure we've all wished for things in the meantime. So why _this_ wish?" 

"It was more vehement than anything else and was so vindictive that whatever God granted it thought it'd be worth the energy?" Trunks grumbled bitterly. They ignored him. 

"It's always possible that Dad never entirely left us," Gohan said after a while, his voice deep with thought. "Because he never really did. There are times when I can feel him watching over me and my family, and others when I can honestly feel the full weight of his loss, which I can't say I've ever really felt at all, even with all the times that he's died." 

"But what does that have to do with anything?" Trunks interjected. "I mean, yeah, sometimes I get the feeling that if I turn around fast enough, I'll see him standing behind me or catch him ducking into a store. But Goku could never grant wishes, at least not as far as I know." 

Gohan shook his head. "Dad merged with the Dragonballs, remember? To say that he's essentially become the permanent _enbodiment_ of Shenlong is not all-together unfeasible. And it makes perfect sense, as Shenlong was the wishgranter the collected Dragonballs summoned." 

They sat in silence for a few moments, mulling over his words. In all truth, it probably _was_ the truth. There was a hammering in Trunks's gut that told him that if he didn't trust Gohan on this one, he was a bigger moron than he'd ever accused Goten of being. He sighed, planting his hands on the table and resting his weight on them. 

"And on the other hand," Bulma picked up after a moment, "why eighteen, and not thirty-two?" 

The silence around them became deafening with the obvious: Gohan was right; only Goku could mess up a wish that simple. The three of them looked back and forth between each other, before Bulma smacked her leg, like a teacher who felt that her students had had ample time to answer. 

"When you really think about it, wishes are strange things. Unless you're specific, which one one ever really is, they tend to define themselves. Bra only wished you'd act your age, and let's face it Hun, you've never really grown up. The only difference between you at eight and you and eighteen was that by eighteen you weren't so much arrogant as you were simply Vegeta's son." 

Gohan nodded, seemingly seeing this as a full explanation, but Trunks still felt like he was wandering around - blindfolded - in the dark. Maybe when he'd woken up that morning he'd have been able to grasp what was being said, but there was a wisdom that came with age, and that he simply wasn't privy to any longer. 

"You know," the older man mused, his gaze shifting to look at something that wasn't in the room, a look that Trunks and Goten had always jokingly called "the smart-guy look". "You know, Mom's always said you're every age you've ever been. For instance, a five year old can never know what it's like to be fifty, but an old man can remember what it's like to be young. In a way, I guess that could explain this. Trunks was acting like a kid when Bra made that wish, and this is the age he was acting - essentially, the age he was." 

Trunks sighed, finally understanding. "So you're saying that because she never wished for me to _grow up_, whoever granted that wish thought _this_ was the age she was talking about." 

"Exactly," Bulma replied, stretching an arm in the air and waving her finger at him with a wink. 

Trunks grumbled and flopped backwards again, his back popping as he fell over the edge. "In that case, I'm gald she didn't make that wish while I was eatting breakfast."

*******************************************************************  
A/N: Ok, so it's not the best chapter I've ever written...once I get a chance, I'll probably come back and edit this properly. And like I said before, this is only the first half of the chapter. The second half should be up shortly. Maybe. Stupid school... 

Oh! And if you're wondering where the hell I am when I disappear or when I'm going to be back, www.aboutmylife.net/~panabelle. It's my blog; explains where I am, and every tuesday I try to review a "new" anime...sadly, I don't think I'm going to make tomorrow...anyways, yeah. Go read that thing if you're wondering why I've pulled my latest Houdini. Anyways, go review! Please? 

-Panabelle ;P  
www.angelfire.com/dbz/storytellers :: Shrine of the Saiyan Squirt: hosted by the reincarnation of the Great Houdini 


	8. chapter 7::them

Disclaimer: The previous "chapter", 6b, which has been wiped from the face of the earth, does not belong to me. Because no one in their right mind would want to claim that shit. 

A/N: Very important note for probably the first time in ever. For everyone who read 6b: disregard it completely. Since posting it, the direction of the story has changed, and I've burned it. Literally. Because it was the source of much antagonizing and ridicule and mirth and...I could go on, but let's leave it at this. I'm posting Grow Up! as I write it, so obviously there are going to be some details that aren't in sync with later chapters, and there are going to be story threads that get forgotten until the rewrite (should there ever be one). Most of these I leave put; for example, Soshiki's eyes were originally brown, but now they're grey. But occasionally, there's the chapter that just *has* to go, for one reason or another. 6b was that chapter, for several reasons: 1, it was shit, and 2, why the hell would they go to the hot springs if Bra was sick? 

So in short, after disappointing my editors and myself, I realized where the story _really_ needed to go, and scrapped 6b. I'm sorry about the confusion. Read on, and leave reviews. Next chapter will (hopefully -- fingers crossed) be up before school starts in Sept. If not, shortly thereafter. 

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**_GROW UP!!!_**  
chapter 7::_them_

"You didn't have to cancel the trip on my account," Bra mumbled, curled up in a miserable ball in the backseat, her neck bent at an awkward angle against Soshiki's thigh. 

Tatsuki bit the corner of his mouth, knowing that she and Soshiki honestly weren't fond of each other and not just playing at it like children, though they did make a strained effort to get along for his sake and Pan's. Whatever the case, it was adorable. 

And it was just what Soshiki needed. 

Pan shook her head as she leaned up against Soshiki's door, her hands stuffed into her pockets and her head dipped through the open window. "Yes we did, Bra. You're sick." The older girl started to protest, but Pan tugged a hand free of her jacket and reached through the window, brushing hair from her best friend's face, like she would a sister's. "You need your health, Bra. We have finals in a few weeks, you know that." 

Bra sighed, reluctantly giving in, and proceeded to ignore her. He had to admit that she had a point, the hot springs hadn't been too far away and probably would have done her a fair amount of good. But she'd passed out as soon as his brother had eased himself into the car beside her, and they'd all agreed that it would be best to just head home and let her rest in peace. 

Pan stuffed her hand back into her pocket and shook her head sadly, her eyes probing the side of Bra's face. "Alright…we're going to go get some warm drinks and see if we might find something to help you settle your stomach. We'll be back as soon as we can, k?" 

Soshiki gave her a half-hearted salute, looking pointedly at Tatsuki. 

"Run the engine for a few minutes if it starts to get too cold," Tatsuki instructed, pulling his keys from his pocket and handing them to his brother through the window as Pan eased away from the door. "We'll make this as fast as we can." 

Soshiki nodded, his grey eyes piercing his older brother's barriers. "Don't push yourself, Brother." 

Grinding his back teeth, he nodded and turned, motioning to the convenience store with his head. Pan nodded and fell into step beside him as Soshiki cranked the window up. 

"You think they'll be alright?" she asked quietly, looking back over her shoulder worriedly. "I mean, they don't even get along that well when they're _united_ against something with a hundred other people!, let alone when-" 

"They'll be fine," he assured her. The black pavement of the parking lot sparkled up at them, and he set a hand briefly in the small of her back, steering her around a patch of ice. The contact seemed to comfort her, her shoulders relaxing as she finally turned around to watch where they were going. "Soshiki knows when to push and when to pull. If she's honestly sick, he'll play nursemaid for as long as she's willing to let him." 

A small giggle escaped her, and he smiled, reaching up to discretely tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. Self-consciously, she pulled her hands from her pockets and ran her fingers behind both ears, as if searching for more rogues that had escaped the tyrannical hold of the blue bandana she wore. He reached forward as they stepped under the store's canopy, pulling open the door for her. His breath caught in his throat at the icy bite of the handle, and he coughed a few times as it turned around and tried to force itself out. Pan looked at him worriedly as she slipped past him into the store. 

He waved her off. 

"Soshiki's been awfully worried about you lately," she mumbled slowly, a guilty look passing over her features as she stamped her boots on the mat inside. He let the door fall shut behind him and joined her in the ritual stomping. "Has your asthma been that bad lately?" 

He shook his head as they finished, and followed her to the far end of the store, where she seemed to instinctively know the health care products would be. He smiled to himself as she turned out to be right. She zeroed in on a bottle of generic cold medicine, lifting it in two hands to read the back for just what generic colds it covered. 

"Sheik's just trying to protect himself from an old childhood fear," he replied. "I've been fine." 

She blinked and looked at him as he knelt beside her. An army of Tylenol looked pleadingly towards him for help as it squared off against a squadron of Advil. 

"You're talking about your mother, right?" she asked quietly, her fingers tightening awkwardly around the bottle of red liquid. He nodded idly, studying the shelf above the Battle of Aspirins, picking up a small tube of Dramamine. 

"Mmm. Mom died when we were little. He was only three or four, so he really doesn't remember, but I know he remembers that it'd been a really terrible winter that year, long and cold with an insanely late snow-kinda like this year. She'd come down with pneumonia shortly after Christmas, and her lungs filled with fluid. We'd been having a snowball fight during the first good snow a few weeks later, after she'd come home from the hospital. She came out to watch us, and for one reason or another, her asthma flared up and she had an attack. She died two days later." He set the tube back down and draped his arms across his knees, shaking his head with a sigh. 

"We've never really been close to our father; after our mother died, he sent us to live with her parents in America until we were old enough to take care of ourselves; he couldn't stand the fact that we looked so much like her. We were never close to our grandparents either; they were a pair of old twits who were so ancient they weren't aware of what we were doing with ourselves. And Dad's parents died off when he was still in high school. So, essentially, I'm the only family Sheik has. 

"He's terrified of being alone, of being abandoned. I am too, so I don't care that he's so protective. Because, honestly, I'd have probably gone out and played shirts and skins baseball in the snow and followed our mother by now if he weren't around to stop me." 

He laughed quietly to himself, planting a hand on the knee of his jeans and pushing himself to his feet, but his laughter died as he turned to face Pan. She was standing as still as stone, her eyes locked on the dark silhouette of his car at the far end of the parking lot, under a street light. Her face was pained and worried, her hands tight around the bottle she still held. 

"Pan?" he murmured, reaching up and tugging lightly on her bandana. "Pan, you ok? What's…" 

"It's easy for me to forget that people can die from something as simple as a cold," she whispered, lifting a hand to push a stray hair from her eyes. "Everyone I-I-I mean, all you really hear about anymore are the gruesome deaths. Gang fights, car accidents, gunshot wounds… There's always the occasional 'died of old age' in the news, but they seem so rare…" 

A sharp pang akin to guilt shot through him and he weakened, quickly wrapping his arms around her waist and gruffly pulling her back against his chest, crushing her to him. She started at the contact before melting back into him, letting him hold her against whatever thoughts were running through her overworked brain. He clamped his eyes shut, as if he could will the world to look away, ducking his face against her ear and neck. 

Neither of them moved for what seemed like eternity, a small voice in the back of Tatsuki's head screaming at him to let go of her before something happened, before one of his old 'friends' saw them and decided to do something about it. But for once, he chose to ignore it, taking a deep breath before finally trusting himself to speak. 

"I'm sure Bra's fine, Pan," he whispered, pushing his nose into the hollow between her ear and her jaw line. "She said so herself, she was just carsick." 

Pan shook her head, her hair tickling his neck. "I've never seen her like that, Tatsuki…never. She was…she was downright delusional, like she was hallucinating. She's been coming to school with bruised eyelids, like she's been clenching her eyes shut for hours, and she falls asleep so easily in class, her grades have been slipping for the last week…and you saw her this morning, when she opened the door? She looked like her entire world had been brutally raped and ruined." 

Tatsuki turned his face from her, pressing his ear against her neck, listening to her heartbeat. His eyes landed on a curious display that brought a blush to his cheeks and he coughed lightly. 

"Pan…I'm not," he paused to cough again, not quite sure how to ask what was broadcasting itself across his brain in neon lights. 

"Tats?" She turned to look at him, her cheek cold and flushed against his forehead, her eyelashes catching in his hair. 

"I'm not suggesting anything," he managed finally in a tight voice, keeping his chin on her shoulder and his face hidden by his blond bangs to conceal his embarrassment. "But, it's possible that…do you think that, maybe, Bra's pregnant?" 

He felt her blink several times before shifting her gaze to the display of condoms he was looking at. She stiffened immediately, her tired brain trying to process his question. 

"I mean, well…look at it this way," he explained quietly, hiding his voice from the other people in the store. "She looked devastated this morning right? And ok, she was carsick, but the girl has a pretty strong stomach-everyone in both of your families seems to-but still…and you said she's been off and has been more and more distracted for the past few days…it…it sorta kinda sounds like…like morning sickness…" 

Pan stood there, her mouth slightly agape for several moments, before snapping to attention and shaking her head fervently from side to side. "She _couldn't_ be! I mean, well, yeah, I know she's not a virgin, but…I mean, she'd _tell_ me! Right? And…anyways, she and what's-his-face-Sagara-they broke up _months_ ago! And Bra isn't the type to have a one night stand with _anyone_…hell, I don't even think she _slept_ with Sagara…" 

"It's possible she doesn't know…" Tatsuki murmured to himself, flinching as Pan half whirled in his arms. 

"But-but-you just said that…I mean, if that's the case, then why would she-" 

"Shhh," he interrupted, lifting his head. "I was just asking-I didn't actually _mean_ it." He lifted a hand, wrapping it around hers and the bottle she was clutching in a death grip. The poor thing was bulging at both ends, looking like it was about to explode and shower medicated red rain down on everyone and everything in the store. "C'mon. Let's get some drinks and get outta here. Bra and my brother are probably popsicles by now."

*

Soshiki settled back against the seat, watching as Pan and his brother moved quickly through the snow towards the bright beacon that was the warmth of the convenience store. Beside him, Bra grumbled something and raised a hand to rub at the back of her neck, pulling his attention back to her. 

A corner of his mouth quirked up into a private smile, and he gently curled a hand under her face and cupped her cheek, lifting her head and pillowing it on his thigh. A muscle in her jaw twitched once as if she thought to tell him off, but as her neck popped and her spine straightened, she sighed and relented. 

"I was fine," she mumbled tightly, balling her fists, her knuckles just visible beyond the cuffs of his jacket. 

He smirked quietly, pulling her bangs from her face as Pan had a few moments before. She flinched at his touch, as if she had expected a physical blow. "Then why haven't you moved back?" Bra remained silent, letting out a heavy sigh through her nose. "That's what I thought," he answered himself, sliding his hand under her bangs to feel her forehead. "You _do_ realize you've given yourself a fever…right?" 

She remained silent, ignoring him, and he sighed himself, pulling on the shoulder of his leather jacket so that it wasn't so tight around her arm. Planting his elbow on the edge of the door, the window cold against his skin, he rested his chin in his hand. 

It had started snowing again, lightly this time, the flakes drifting so gently from the skies that he could probably count them if he'd wanted to. Draping his arm across her shoulder, he settled in to wait. 

He played absentmindedly with her hair, wrapping it gently around his fingers and pulling it away from her face, running his fingertips through it. Two kids at the other end of the parking lot were chucking snowballs at each other, their mother laughing as she stood nearby loading groceries into the trunk of her car. He smiled sadly to himself, blinking as he felt Bra stir. He looked back at her, watching her eyes open slowly. 

"Do you really have to do that?" she mumbled flatly, glaring at the back of the seat in front of her. 

He blinked again, running his thumb back and forth across the ends of a lock of hair. "Do what?" 

"That. Play with my hair. You've been doing it all day." 

He blinked, the action finally lodging in his consciousness. For a minute he didn't say anything, simply turned his gaze back to the children playing outside. Their mother was ushering them back into the car, fussing over loose scarves and lost mittens, brushing snow off of their shoulders and hats. Soshiki smiled and tugged lightly on Bra's hair, the memory connecting to some hidden memory deep within him. 

"My mother used to do it whenever I was sick. It's about the only thing I really remember about her." He let go of her hair and let his hand dangle over the edge of her shoulder, planting knuckles against his temple and looking down at her. "Does it really bother you?" 

"Everything you do bothers me, Flunkie" she grumbled, shaking her head as she levered herself into a sitting position and curled up against her window, hugging her knees to her chest, her face hidden from him. She was silent for a while, so quiet that when she _did_ speak, he almost missed it. "My brother used to do that whenever our parents were fighting and I couldn't sleep." 

He forced himself to keep his mouth closed, hoping that maybe she would shed some light on whatever "trouble" she was having at home. But she remained silent, tracing the embroidery on the left front pocket of his jacket, her fingers lazing across the phoenix's tailfeathers as if committing each one to memory. He watched her curiously, remembering the first time he'd worn that jacket, and wondering if she realized everything it stood for. What it was. 

The moments dragged on, the silence bouncing back and forth between them, taunting him, daring Soshiki to break its neck, but he kept his mouth clamped tightly shut. If she wanted to be stubborn, she could _be_ stubborn. Stubborn bitch. 

He snapped his face back to the window, immediately choking on his tongue at the view. Coughing, he tried to bite back his laughter. The two children playing in the snow had turned into two teenagers, though the game _these_ two were playing wasn't exactly anything their parents had in_tend_ed to teach them. 

Unable to keep from sniggering, and thoroughly disgusted, he shook his head with a grin. "You know, that's the last thing I'm sure _any_ of us wanna see." 

"See what?" Bra mumbled flatly. He rolled his eyes and rapped lightly on the window with his knuckles before setting them back against his temple. 

"Them." 

He felt Bra stir behind him, shifting on the seat to peer over his shoulder. "Who, Pan and Tatsuki?" 

"Yeah…right," he snorted, and shook his head, tapping on the window again. "_Them._" 

She shook her head as she leaned over his lap, cupping her hands around her eyes and peering through the falling snow to the couple that had parked themselves in a snow bank. 

"'Them'," she mimicked, using a voice sounding like it belonged to a rooster on steroids. She shook her head. "You make 'them' sound like this terrible disease." 

"They _are_," Soshiki cried, peering out with her, trying to get a better glance at the couple as they teetered on losing their precocious balance. "Seriously! The last thing _any_one wants to see when they're alone is another couple acting all mushy lovey-dovey and shit. Not to mention, _that_ is down right disgusting." 

"They're in love, you idiot," she spat, turning to glare at him. The glare seemed more out of habit than anything, though. 

"Um…Bee? That's right there? That's _lust_, honeybuns. And you _can't_ watch that and tell me it's not disgusting. I mean, that's the kind of thing that makes me say some people just shouldn't try to breed." 

She shook her head, watching as hands disappeared into jackets that didn't belong to their respective bodies. "Everyone has the right to have _some_one," she replied, her voice exhausted, rolling her eyes. He laughed a moment later as her eyes tripled in size and she pawed frantically at the window, wiping away the condensation from her breath as she tried to validate what she thought the two outside were doing. 

Soshiki turned to look himself, and almost dumped Bra on the floorboards as he whirled around, pressing his face against the glass next to hers. He wasn't exactly sure _what_ they were doing due to the bulk of their clothes, but something told him that it was something that should be done behind closed doors. Nice solid doors that were soundproof and that could repel angry fathers. 

"Ok…yeah…some people _really_ shouldn't be breeding," Bra squeaked, her breath coming in short pants, trying to force air past the shock that had embedded itself in her chest. He shifted automatically, pulling her closer to him as she tottered on the edge of the seat, ducking so that she could peer over his shoulder. Instinctively, she wrapped an arm around his chest, both of them trapped in morbid curiosity by the free show the two in the parking lot were giving for anyone who wanted to stand in the cold and watch. 

"Ok, that's just gross." Soshiki swallowed thickly, pulling a hand from the window to flip some of Bra's hair away from his ears. 

"Have they come up for air?" she breathed, awed, her hand tightening around the back of his shirt. 

"Their faces are probably frozen together at this point, I mean-ah, that's not righ…_dude! No!_ I don't want to-" 

They fell into shocked silence, clutching at each other as the couple in the snow made it quite clear as to what they were doing. Bra and Soshiki held their breath, eyes wide, unconsciously clutching at each other, as if trying to pull each other and themselves from the window. 

"How deep is her ear?" 

"How long is his _tongue_?" Bra replied, both hands fisted in his tee shirt. A moment passed and his breath hitched, his hands grappling with Bra's as he tried to dig her nails out of his side. "Do you think they're even aware of the fact that the entire city can see them?" 

"Do you think they _care_?" he hissed incredulously, turning his head to look at her. She blinked at looked at him in turn, their faces uncomfortably close. Her hands relaxed, letting go of his shirt, her claws retracting from his spleen. Then she laughed, quietly, turning away, her hair falling like a curtain between them. 

Slowly, he became aware of the position in which they sat, and he chuckled quietly as well, turning to ease back into the seat as she slid back, her arms pulling across his shoulders as she settled into the seat next to him. 

"Are we really that lonely?" she laughed quietly, hugging her knees. His own laughter faded slowly; on impulse he reached out and tucked her hair behind her ear so that he could see her eyes. A moment of peace settled in between them, a rare time of harmony that he had every intention of exploiting to the fullest. 

"Is that what's eating you?" he asked quietly, pulling on his pant legs. 

"Not really, no," she whispered, turning her face away. Her arms tightened around her knees, her hair falling between them once more. She looked pale in the streetlight thrown into the car, one thing that he'd always been able to catch about virtually everyone. 

The other thing was when someone was lying through their teeth. 

He hesitated before hooking his arm around her shoulder and tucking his fingers under her chin. "Bee, look at me." She resisted at first, but for the first time since he'd met her two years ago, she didn't shove him off or try to make him feel like a pervert. She just reached up self-consciously as he turned her face, pushing her hair from her eyes. She was drained now, not panicked like she'd been earlier; quite frankly, he wasn't sure which was more disturbing: walking dead Bra, or dead Bra walking. 

"Then could you tell me?" 

She sighed heavily and shook her head. "You'd kill me." 

He smiled, a quiet, sardonic chuckle escaping his throat. "I'm making an extreme effort to be nice here, Bee. So could you please-for like, _ten_ seconds-pretend that you like me and let me take care of you?" 

She jerked her chin from his fingers, turning her head to burn a hole into the floorboards with her eyes. 

He sighed. "I won't kill you, Bee." 

"No…you'll probably just laugh. And _then_ you'd kill me." 

Grinding his teeth, he counted to ten. When that didn't work, he started to think of how many ways he knew of to strangle a person; when he reached fifty-six, he stabbed the thought to death. The silence in the car was unbearable, but not as unbearable as not knowing what was going on with her. Forcing a deep breath out through his nose, he ducked his face next to hers, prodding at her cheek with his nose. 

"Bra, I promise. I won't-" He paused to catch her chin with the fingertips of his free hand, pulling her face to meet his eyes. Keeping his fingertips on the side of her chin, he rested his forehead against hers. "You really don't _have_ to tell me if you don't want to, Bee. But _one_ of us is going home with you tonight regardless. Pan, my brother…or you can learn to trust me not to hold this over your head for the rest of our respective lives. It doesn't matter to me." 

Panic shot back into her eyes, but she didn't let it show. "What's it to you?" she spat, her expression growing fierce despite her terror. 

"I've seen one girl too many tear herself apart over something she didn't want me or anyone else to know, a secret she kept for a brother. I'm not going to sit and watch it happen again, Bra. Pan doesn't need to know what it feels like to see her best friend do that to herself." 

Bra fell quiet, bit her lower lip. Her eyes probed his, grew vulnerable; she was fighting herself over something that he just didn't know her well enough to understand. She took a deep breath and clenched her eyes shut, subsiding against him, her face pressing against his and catching him off guard. 

"You," Bra choked out, her hands gripping at her jeans. "It…you. You." 

"Alright," Soshiki whispered back, pressing his palm against her cheek, giving her a gentle squeeze. Footsteps crunched through the snow outside, but he paid them no heed, too busy trying to figure out why Bra was going to trust _him_, her arch nemesis, with whatever what gnawing on her liver. Something wet slid down the tender skin under his left eye, and he opened his eyes, confused as to why Bra would be crying. 

"Hey, what's wrong? Bee…hey, you were _fine_ yesterday…what's got you so…" 

The front doors on either side of the car clicked open and he cut himself off as a rush of ice swept into the car, a bitter reminder that Bra still was wearing his jacket. Whatever conversation Pan and his brother had been having ended with a quick bark of air, followed by a shrill exclamation of "_What in the seven hells?!_" from a female voice he'd never known could jump so many decibels.

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A/N: I really don't have anything to say down here. Leave a review before _you_ leave, por favor. 

-Panabelle ;P   
www.angelfire.com/dbz/storytellers :: Shrine of the Saiyan Squirt: a Martha Stewart free forum 


	9. chapter8::surrogate

Disclaimer: This is what I shall tell my teachers tomorrow: "I swear I meant to do my homework, but there was this lynch mob after me, so..." 

A/N: If I get anymore nasty _anonymous_ emails about how I'm a cold heartless bitch for writing a story and not finishing it, I'm going to track your ass down and flog you. I'm neglecting my hmwk for you guys - and have I mentioned that I'm at school from 10 am to 8 pm two days a week (with -on average- 15 minutes between each class), and that kmart owns my ass? No? Ok. I'm at school fulltime - literally. And Kmart owns my ass. _Damn you Martha Stewart!_

But really...I have no intention of abandoning Grow Up or any of my stories. At all...that esca fic I have going and ToB? Remember those two? I'm still working on those...slowly. Anyways, please...to the anonymous emailer who told me I was a big meanie head? Unless I've been dead with no activity here, at the shrine, or the blog (ie, a nice big note saying 'buh-bye now'), for at _least_ six months, don't assume I've left? I can't really write on the fly, and that's why updates take so long. And if I _really_ had to leave it unfinished, I'd stick around long enough to beg someone who I felt capable to finish it for me *turns to look at Taryl-chan and sensei* But we all know I'm not gonna do that, now am I? Anyways, enough bitching. I have hmwk to get to. 

*******************************************  
**_GROW UP!!!_**  
chapter 8::surrogate

  
  


She was in shock; complete, utter, irrational shock. 

Pan wheezed quietly, coming up short of breath and all-too-understanding of what Tasuki went through during an asthma attack; she felt like she'd just walked in on her parents. 

Her boyfriend looked wildly back and forth between her, and the couple in the backseat, not sure who to be more worried about. _No_. _Not_ couple-Bra and Soshiki. Who were in an embrace the likes of which Pan had never thought she'd catch them in-separately or apart. For one thing, they shared an extreme dislike for each other, though they _did_ try their damnedest to get along, if only for her and Tasuki's sake. For another… 

Tasuki cleared his throat, dispelling the terrible memory of her screech. Soshiki responded as if there'd been words, sliding his thumb down Bra's face and curling his arm around her waist, pulling her tight against his chest. The blue haired girl didn't fight him, laying her cheek against his shoulder, gripping his sleeve with both hands and wiping at her tears with her fingertips. 

Blue eyes met bluer, and Pan's chest tightened to the point of physical agony as Bra quickly averted her gaze, sinking deeper into Soshiki, hiding her face in his bicep. 

She'd been replaced. 

Pan swallowed thickly, the paper bag she still cradled in her arms slipping to the ground. 

She'd been replaced as Bra's most trusted companion and the only soul alive allowed to see her cry. 

Tasuki silently closed his door as the bag hit the pavement, cans spilling out onto the ground, warm cocoa and coffee staining the snow. 

Replaced by Soshiki. 

His boots crunched quietly through the snow as he moved towards her. 

Replaced by Bra's arch nemesis. 

"Br…Bra?" Pan choked out, unable to hide the hurt and betrayal in her voice as Tasuki stooped to pick up the spilt drinks. Bra winced, lowering her eyes to the floorboards. 

Soshiki lifted his face from Bra's blue locks, setting his chin on her head. "It's alright, Bee," he soothed quietly, breaking the silence with what Pan prayed would be an explanation. "It's not your fault you smell like vomit." 

Pan watched, detatched, as Bra turned her eyes up to Soshiki's grey gaze, her face growing from "distraught" to "destroy" in a fluid sweep that Pan had only ever seen once before. 

On Bulma's face. 

Right before she'd broken three of Vegeta's ribs by hurling a fullsized refrigerator at him. 

Bra's hands tightened around Soshiki's arm, a growl rumbling in her chest. 

Self-preservation beat back self-pity and Pan snapped back to reality, spinning and launching herself at Tasuki who was crawling through the snow a few feet away. She drove him to the ground and shielded his body with hers-earning a mouthful of blond hair for her efforts-seconds before the car was engulfed with white hot light from the inside out. Over the screams of rage and self-defense, over the cries of the green Hyundai's shocks, the only audible sound was Tasuki's hysterical laughter. 

Pan blinked and uncovered her head, peering back over her shoulder out of sheer curiosity. 

Silhouetted in the car was Bra, crouched over nothing but flailing arms and legs, her shoulders moving as if she were throttling something. 

Pan smiled meekly, still not entirely sure what to think or how to react, but all the same more than mildly entertained. 

"Joke! Joke! It was a joke!" 

"_BASTARD HALF-BREED FLUNKIE! Everytime you start to prove you have ANY sense of decency, you go do something SO utterly BRAINLESS, IDIOTIC, and completely STUPID-not to mention CRUEL-that you make my FATHER look like the DENDE DAMNED **EASTER BUNNY!!!** I hate you! Hate HATE **HATE**!!!_"

* * *

Bra sat in her corner of the car, fuming angrily, glaring a hole into the middle of the driver's seat. Pan shook her head, watching her out of the corner of her eye. _Some_thing was going on between the two in the backseat-and by the way Tasuki kept peering at them via the rearview mirror, he was probably figuring his brother into that "preggie Bra" theory of his. 

If it weren't for the fact that Bra was still wearing Soshiki's leather jacket, pissed as she was, Pan would have beat him for it. But she didn't exactly have anything that she could use to prove Bra's innocence. 

"You're an ass, you know that? A real _ass_." 

"Said the bitch to the dog in heat." 

Bra growled, making choking motions with her hands. Soshiki sniggered and faced her, chomping his teeth with his arms firmly crossed over his chest. 

Somewhere in the back of her mind, Pan registered the fact that her best friend was somewhat back to normal. But beyond that, she was still having a hard time trying to get any sort of grasp on reality. Reality was being a slippery little bastard tonight. 

"Turn left here, right?" 

Pan blinked and shook her head quickly, flinging her thoughts into separate corners of her mind. Still blinking, she turned and looked over at Tasuki. Brown eyes peered at her from beneath blond bands. He nodded to the intersection beyond the stop sign when she failed to comprehend him. 

She shook her head again, trying to get her bearings. She'd been so preoccupied on the fact that neither Bra nor Shoshiki had refused to offer even a shitty excuse as to why they'd practically been lip-locked, that she hadn't even realized they'd reached Satan City. She chewed her lip as her gaze landed on the dominating presence of Orange Star High School off in the distance. 

"R…right," she drawled slowly. "Wait! No…" 

Tasuki took his hands from the wheel, cracking his knuckles. "Well? Which is it? Right or left?" 

"Luh….no…" Pan's mind was as about as useful as the french fry grease it was steeped in: overused and overcooked. 

"Next left, Bro," Soshiki piped up, pulling his arm into his shirt to nurse his bleeding nose with the sleeve of what had once been a white teeshirt. Despite the bruise under his left eye and the welt along the right side of his head, he looked rather amused and quite pleased with himself. 

Pan slowly nodded in agreement, trying to bludgeon the little voice in the back of her head that demanded to know why _he_ knew how to get to the Briefs'. Rationally, she knew that he'd dropped her off there after work at least two or three times and that unlike his brother, he had a thing about remembering directions. 

But Pan didn't really feel like being rational right now-being rational might mean she had to admit that Bra and Soshiki had probably been hiding a relationship from her. 

Or was that irrational? 

"Yeah…take the next left, and then it's a straight shot to Capsule Corps," she mumbled, yanking absently on one of her pigtails. 

Tasuki nodded and drove onward. "You know, that will always confuse me." 

"What will?" Pan asked absently, consoling herself with the fact that he sounded just as bewildered as she felt. She tightened her hand around the chicken strap hanging from the roof as he took the corner, feeling the car scramble for footing on the icy road. Tasuki smiled, probably grateful for the meek attempt at conversation. Ever since she had pried Bra off of his brother, nothing much had been said much beyond the search for the first-aid kit that wasn't, and Soshiki's bitching about how if Bra hadn't tried to murder him in cold blood, their drinks would have still been hot. Other than that, the closest thing they'd had to conversation was the insult slinging in the backseat. 

"How Bra's house is called Capsule Corps, when it _isn't_ the Capsule Corps building." 

"But it _is_ the Capsule Corps building," Pan corrected him, pulling herself out of her detachment long enough to devote herself to the conversation. There'd be plenty of time once Tasuki dropped her off with Bra to figure out what the hell was going on. 

"But-" 

"My house is the original Capsule Corps building," Bra piped up, sounding tired but normal, despite the way she glared at the blond and green haired boy beside her. Pan couldn't help but notice Bra fidget nervously. "It's only been the last ten years that we've had the offices. And that's because the demands for capsule products exceeded what my mom and her private staff could produce in our home. So we built the offices and moved production and the rest of the business there." 

"But it's _still_ called _Capsule Corps_," Tasuki protested. "And _that's_ what confuses me." 

Pan smiled, poking at a wet spot on the knee of her jeans before cupping her hands behind her head, taking comfort in the shift of focus. "That's because it still _is_. Bulma and Trunks use it as a primary lab for their own inventions. It's also where Bulma does her own share of paperwork and presidentialness." 

"But isn't _Trunks_ the president of the company?" Soshiki sputtered through his most-likely broken nose. Bra squirmed visibly this time. She seemed to be growing more and more uncomfortable the closer they got to her house. 

"My brother's just the public face. As Mom's gotten older, sales have gone down. But when we put him up as the public spokesperson and president, sales skyrocketed. My brother never really wanted the company, he wanted to be able to play in the labs as one of Mom's personal staff and let me take over, but she's been looking forward to retiring _now_-ish, so she told him that the face time would help him ease straight into the presidency of the company. So, I guess he is in charge, always has been. But Mom's so attached to her baby that she can't quite let go." 

Pan looked back at Bra worriedly; she was way too quiet. Normally she took so much pride in her family's legacy. But tonight… 

"Lady Bra, your mom _ain't_ that old," Tasuki piped up. "She's spoken at the university more than enough times for me to tell you that. Your brother can't be much older than I am. So how in the hell-" 

"Let's just say that Trunks is thirty-two, Tats," Pan coddled, patting his head. 

"Was," Bra mumbled dejectedly from the backseat. 

Pan blinked and turned around, peering back at her best friend. "That's right, he had a birthday a couple weeks ago, didn't he? Guess I'll have to say happy birthday to him…" 

Bra shook her head, hiding behind her hair and glaring out the window. "Something like that," she muttered, slouching down in the seat and crossing her arms firmly across her chest. 

Pan took her cue to keep her mouth shut and turned back around, looking out her own window at the familiar houses whizzing by. Bra could be as stubborn as she wanted, but the second they were outside of the car, Pan wasn't going to let her brood like this any longer. She'd been a bad best friend long enough; she had to fix this while she could. 

It wasn't long before Tasuki pulled into Bra's drive, and Pan hastily unbuckled her seatbelt as Tasuki put the car in park, getting out of the car and turning to look back in at Bra before she closed the door. But Bra was already disappearing out her own door, one hand locked tightly around the collar of Soshiki's shirt, dragging him with her. 

Her voice lodged in her throat, as if she'd caught a bad upper cut to the stomach, and she could only watch, destroyed, as Bra waved good-bye and hauled her sworn enemy up the front steps.

****************************************************  
A/N: Please excuse the angst. And for everyone confused on why there _is_ so much angst, please just be patient with me. I know I'm slow with the chapters *conceeds that dbzobsessed was right back in july*, but I'm getting there. Really. I have a doodle class this semester, so I'll try and get some writing done then, but I can't promise it. I really _am_ trying to update on a normal basis again...I mean, miracles happen, right? ;P 

-Panabelle ;P  
www.angelfire.com/dbz/storytellers :: Shrine of the Saiyan Squirt: searching to fire angels 


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